


True Romance

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: F/M, M/M, Valentine Gift Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 01:43:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5987848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two undercover assignments lead to dangerous new discoveries.<br/>A Valentine Gift Fic for Maevemauvaise (complete in five parts)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A/N: Valentine’s gift fic for Maevemauvaise. I have to also give a huge thanks to Amberlyinviolet for being super patient with some D/s questions from me as well as doing a great beta read. Any mistakes you see are my own and NOT her fault though.  
A/N #2: This fic is complete in five parts and I will be posting a chapter every day or as I get it edited. So you’re not going to be waiting months or years for updates on this. And yes, I’m working on updates for my WIPs.

Warnings: D/s, BDSM, fluff, angst, violence, language, smutty smut smut (of the 2x5 variety only). Also cliches because… I really wanted to do some fun things. And a few Star Wars quotes because Star Wars.  
Pairings: 2X5, 3xR

True Romance

Wufei walked into the lounge and saw that Heero and Trowa were already there. Trowa seated on the couch with his legs stretched in front of him, cup of coffee in one hand and a battered paperback novel in the other, looked up at his entrance and nodded a greeting.  
Heero, seated at the table in the center of the room with his hands cradling his own cup of coffee, glared at Wufei.  
Naturally, Wufei smirked in response and walked over to pour himself a cup of the coffee, hoping that Trowa had been the one to brew it.  
“I see you’re still pissed about the PT results,” he murmured, stirring milk into his coffee.  
Heero, predictably, didn’t respond.  
Wufei turned around and leaned back against the counter while he looked at Heero.  
He took a slow sip of his coffee, enjoying this more than he should if he was reading Trowa’s facial expression correctly.  
“You lost most of your time on the island hopper obstacle but I was impressed with how much you made up on the belly crawl. Then again -”  
Trowa cleared his throat and Wufei arched an eyebrow at him. Trowa shook his head slightly, a clear warning for Wufei to drop it.  
The level of frost in Heero’s fixed blue stare was just another warning.  
Wufei opened his mouth to continue, but Duo’s timely entrance to the lounge no doubt saved both Heero and him from another disciplinary hearing.  
“Morning all,” Duo greeted them with a wide smirk.  
He was, to their collective annoyance, an overly enthusiastic morning person while the rest of them existed in a state of only partial functionality before their morning caffeine set in.   
Trowa didn’t bother to look up from his novel, Heero barely spared Duo a glower, and Wufei tried very hard to not stare at Duo in his uniform.  
He had been surprised, the first time he saw him in the Preventers uniform. He had somehow expected Duo to try to flaunt the rules - to forego the tie or leave his shirt untucked or roll up his sleeves or something other than look so meticulous as to be a recruitment poster.  
After four years of seeing Duo immaculately turned out the surprise had worn off, but Wufei’s appreciation hadn’t diminished in the slightest. Duo’s uniform fit him well, especially when he leaned against the counter next to Wufei and stretched to reach for the last clean mug in the upper cabinet.  
Wufei forced himself to look away and in doing so saw Heero’s arched eyebrow.  
He glared and Heero smirked ever so slightly, that shit eating expression that Wufei hated the most.  
“Anyway, it’s good that I caught you all here. We’ve got some mission updates to go over.”  
Perhaps even more surprising than the way Duo filled out the Preventers uniform was his rise in the ranks. Despite the fact that Duo unabashedly despised authority figures, he was a diligent agent, cooperated with the higher-ups and even managed to become friendly with some of the veteran's left over from the pre-ESUN security forces. As a result it was Duo who was the highest ranking former terrorist, and Duo who worked with Commander Une to set up their missions.  
Wufei would have resented Duo’s success if the other man hadn’t worked so hard for it or been so damn good at it. As it was, it still rankled on occasion to have the man order him about.  
“Relena’s going to some event on the Moon and needs an escort.”  
Heero arched an eyebrow.  
“I didn’t see anything on her schedule.”  
By default, Heero was usually assigned bodyguard duties for Relena, though they had all taken their turn at it.  
“It’s not associated with her political duties. It’s a…” Duo rubbed his forehead, as if he had a headache, “it’s a personal trip.”  
“Then she can hire a security firm,” Trowa muttered, still not looking up from his book.  
“Yeah except intel has been picking up a lot of chatter regarding her lately and the Commander doesn’t think it’s safe for her to go on vacation with an escort.”  
“Vacation?” Wufei echoed. He didn’t think Relena even knew what a vacation was.  
Duo shrugged one shoulder.  
“It’s some… I don’t know, a friend of her’s from school is getting married at some fancy resort on the Moon and apparently it’s also Relena’s birthday or something and - look. The point is she’s going to the Moon this weekend and she needs an escort.”  
“I can -” Heero started but Duo shook his head in the negative.  
“No can do. Relena was pretty adamant that she not feel like a prisoner. She didn’t want the escort at all so we need to take a different approach.”  
Trowa arched an eyebrow, finally looking up from his book.  
“Meaning?” He asked.  
Duo sighed.  
“Meaning this is technically an undercover assignment.”  
“Undercover how?” Wufei reluctantly asked.  
“The escort is going to pose as her boyfriend. It’s the best way to keep a close but unobtrusive watch on her. Which is also why you can’t do it Heero - the whole Earthsphere knows you’re her bodyguard.”  
Heero shrugged, not looking even the slightest bit upset. If anything, he looked relieved.  
But if Heero couldn’t do it that meant -  
“And I can’t do it because I have another mission that same weekend.”  
Wufei and Trowa exchanged looks. Trowa shook his head, as if to call not it.  
Wufei sighed. He owed Trowa a few favors. Spending one weekend as Relena’s boyfriend wasn’t the worst way to even the score between them.  
“Fine,” he said.  
“Ah, actually, ‘Fei, it can’t be you either.”  
Wufei arched an eyebrow at him.  
Duo scratched along his jaw line and wouldn’t meet Wufei’s eyes.  
“Une said over her dead body would she go through the paperwork and risk of interspace conflict that pairing you and Relena resulted in the last time.”  
Wufei found himself smirking at that.  
Last year he had been assigned bodyguard duty to Relena during a trade negotiation trip to L1. She had goaded Wufei into teaching her a few hand to hand combat techniques by insisting that Duo had taught her no fewer than three ways to disarm someone and stating that she doubted Wufei knew as much. The end result had been an L1 representative hospitalized after he thought he could speed up the negotiations by putting his hand on Relena’s ass.   
Une had yelled at Wufei for nearly an hour upon his return to headquarters, but Duo had forced him into a hug and taken him out for a drink to commiserate and congratulate him.  
“Duo, let me trade assignments with you,” Trowa said and there was a thread of desperation in his voice.  
Wufei turned to him in confusion.  
Trowa’s tone had also garnered Heero’s attention and even Duo looked a little concerned.  
“Tro I’m sorry but this is kind of a sensitive mission and -”  
“I’ll file your mission reports for a month.”  
“Okay, first off you procrastinate to the point of not doing your own mission reports until Une reminds you at least twice so why the hell would I trust you do to mine and second what’s the big deal? You’re the one with the most undercover experience anyway.”  
Trowa seemed to shrink into the couch. He was silent for a moment before looking up with an almost wild glint in his eyes.  
“Maybe I need a break from all of the undercover work. Maybe I’m struggling to differentiate reality and my false identities.”  
“Um… if that’s really the case we need to get you into some therapy but my mission is an undercover mission too so that won’t help.”  
Trowa set his book down and ran his hand through his hair, making it even more disheveled than normal.  
“Duo - is there no one else who can do this?”  
“No one else that we can trust with Relena’s life, no.”  
Trowa sighed.  
“Tro - is there something you need to tell me?” Duo asked in concern.  
Trowa sighed again.  
“No. No it’s fine. Of course it’s fine. I’ll do it.”  
“Okay…” Duo looked over at Wufei and arched an eyebrow, silently asking if he knew what was going on.  
Wufei lifted his shoulders in a shrug. Trowa’s behaviour was just as bizarre to him as it was to Duo.  
“Well now that that’s settled, uh, Wufei, I need you with me on my mission.”  
“Really?”  
They rarely worked together, mostly because Duo, when he was out in the field, was usually on undercover work and if he partnered with anyone it was Trowa.  
“I’m working with you on an undercover mission?”  
Duo nodded.  
“Yeah. Normally I’d work with Tro on this… but it’s time sensitive and he’s going to have his hands full with Relena.”  
Trowa muttered something under his breath that Wufei couldn’t understand.  
“Anyway,” Duo said, giving Trowa another look, “it’s, uh, well...it’s regarding Lady Carmen.”  
That got all of their attention.  
Lady Carmen had been behind more than a dozen terrorist attacks in the L2 and L3 colonies since the war. She had established a shady trade organization that was little more than a band of pirates and terrorists who took it upon themselves to establish ‘order’ on some of the outlying colonies by moving in, executing the ESUN officials and setting up their own members in positions of authority. On a handful of colonies, Carmen’s people had de facto control over thousands of people.  
While the Preventers had managed to bring in a few of her lieutenants, they had struggled to get much intel on her much less been able to develop any plans for her apprehension. They didn’t even know her real name, and there was a group of senior intel officers who insisted that she didn’t exist and that the name Lady Carmen was being used as an umbrella for a collection of terrorist groups.  
“New intel?” Heero asked.  
Duo nodded.  
“Yeah. It turns out that Carmen is into BDSM and…” Duo seemed to stumble over what to say. “and, uh, well...we have a contact that… so Sally Po met a former slave or submissive or - let’s just say that Sally met a former companion of Carmen’s and we know where she’s going to be this weekend.”  
Wufei frowned.  
“I don’t understand.”  
But Heero evidently did. His lips spread into a wide grin and he laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair, a move he had clearly picked up from Duo.  
“You’re going undercover to a BDSM party aren’t you?” Heero asked.  
Duo sighed but nodded.  
Wufei looked between Duo and Heero.  
“What? I’m going undercover to a what kind of party?”  
“Why can’t I go instead?” Trowa asked at exactly the same time.  
Duo held up a hand to forestall any more comments from Wufei or Trowa.  
“Wufei, it’s - I’m sure it’s not going to be as hard as it sounds.”  
“It’ll probably be harder,” Heero muttered, earning glares from both Duo and Wufei.  
“And Trowa - you’re straight!”  
“I’m also a good undercover agent. I can do this.”  
“I promise I won’t teach Relena more ways to kill people,” Wufei added.  
Duo shook his head.  
“No. No, no, no. This is not a democracy.”  
“Actually -” Heero started to say.  
Duo stabbed a finger in the air at him.  
“Don’t mess with me, Yuy. These two are already on my shit list. You do not want to find yourself on it as well.”  
He turned back to Wufei and Trowa.  
“Trowa. You will spend three days pretending to be Relena’s boyfriend and you will make sure she comes back from this wedding in one piece. Wufei. You are my partner for this and I am sorry but I can’t use Heero and frankly there’s no one else I trust. But if you really don’t think you can do this we can… just let this chance pass by and see what else we can set up in the future.”  
Wufei scowled.  
So either they let a murderous scumbag continue to kill people or he had to suck it up and -  
-and what exactly? What exactly would attending this BDSM party entail?  
Wufei’s was about to ask, but he noticed Heero still grinning. Still looking triumphant and cocky and Wufei gritted his teeth.  
“Of course I can do it,” he said.  
Duo sighed in what was clearly relief.  
“Thank you. And you,” he turned to Heero. “You’re taking over my rotation on recruit training.”  
Wufei expected to see Heero’s grin fade, but if anything, it grew even wider.  
“Thank you,” Heero said. He drained his coffee, put the mug in the sink and then sauntered out of the lounge.  
“Did he just thank you for putting him on bolo duty?” Trowa asked incredulously. They all always did whatever they could to get out of dealing with training recruits.  
“Yeah. Mark is overseeing PT this month.”  
“Mark?” Wufei asked and then he frowned. “Mark who oversaw the obstacle course time trials?”  
Duo nodded.  
“Yeah. He and Heero have a… thing.” Duo made some vague hand gesture.  
“Oh.” Trowa arched an eyebrow. “I thought Heero was with -”  
“No, no,” Duo shook his head. “That was two months ago. No, apparently he thinks Mark is the one. Of course, he’s kind of pissed that some asshole had to show him up during the time trials in front of Mark,” Duo said, giving Wufei a pointed look.  
“How was I supposed to know?” Wufei asked in self-defense. “And Yuy says that about every guy he dates.”  
“One of these times it’s going to be true,” Duo said and finished his own coffee. “In the meantime, try not to sabotage this one for him, yeah?”  
“I didn’t sabotage the last one,” Wufei growled. “You were the one with the bright idea for us all to go on vacation together. How was I supposed to know that bottom feeder would try to sneak into my hotel room?”  
“Fair enough,” Duo agreed. He sighed. “Uh, I’ve sent the mission brief to your email. If you want to look over it, let me know if you have any questions. We’re scheduled to talk to Sally this afternoon.”  
“Sally? Why? Why not just talk to the informant?”  
“Because I don’t know the first fucking thing about BDSM and I don’t trust some informant to help me figure this out. So unless you’ve got a way more interesting personal life than I ever gave you credit for, we need Sally to teach us.”  
It was at that moment that Wufei fully realized what this meant.  
It meant that Sally Po was into BDSM.  
It meant that Sally Po - Sally, who patched him up in the med bay and always gave him lectures about eating healthier - had sex.

-o-

Duo couldn’t decide which of them was more uncomfortable.  
Even before Sally had started to explain the roles of Dominants and submissives, Wufei had that look on his face he usually got when the mess hall served their version of Chinese food.  
Duo, meanwhile, found his overactive imagination trying to picture everything Sally explained to them. Which would be fine, if he wasn’t busily picturing Wufei doing these things and if those mental images weren’t starting to make him aroused.  
Sally, on the other hand, looked as if she was having the time of her life. Duo wondered if she was trying to horrify them with all of the detail she was going into. But it wasn’t until she paused to ask which of them would be the Dom that she got a reaction out of them.  
“Me,” Duo and Wufei said.  
They glared at each other.  
“Maxwell, you might be my superior here but there is no way I am taking orders from you while doing this completely degrading and -”  
“Wufei, it isn’t degrading,” Sally interrupted. “Well, it is but the intention is for the Dom to assume control of the sub as part of caring for them. This is only for one weekend - just one party. I’ve talked you through a few scenes you might find yourself facing. I know it isn’t… ideal but one of you needs to be the Dom and one of you will have to be the sub.”  
“So, this party - tell me again what it’s going to be like,” Duo requested in an effort to put off what was most definitely going to be a heated argument between him and Wufei.  
“I know the Dungeon Master running this event and he typically keeps things very high protocol. Very few of his guests actually know each other - we’re talking Old World elites here who live all over the Earthsphere now. Anyway, they like to do things very Old Guard. The Doms will be dressed to the nines while the subs will be… more or less naked.”  
“Define more or less,” Wufei bit out. Every line in his body spoke of anger and Duo wanted to reach over but he knew Wufei would only slap his hand away.  
“The subs who are owned will be wearing collars, of course,”  
“Of course,” Wufei echoed.  
“And maybe some jewelry or fetish wear but for the most part they will be naked.”  
“So one of us is going to have to parade around naked.”  
“Well not out in public. This party is at the same resort that Relena and Trowa will be at, isn’t it?”  
Duo nodded. It was such a bizarre coincidence that it had him on edge about both missions.  
“It’s a very high end place - obviously. Master Bolton - that’s the Dungeon Master - will probably rent out a penthouse suite and have furniture and a few toys set up for his guests to use. But you will need to bring your own toys as well. You should wear street appropriate clothes to the party and there will be somewhere for you to change when you get there - for the sub. The Dom should be fine to wear his clothes out and about.”  
“So… which one of you is going to be which?” Sally asked again.  
Duo drew in a deep breath and looked at Wufei.  
“Wufei I think you should be the sub.”  
The other man’s dark eyes narrowed dangerously.  
“‘Fei, I can’t go around mostly naked. You’ve seen my body - it would freak out the civilians too much.”  
Wufei’s scowl shifted into an expression that Duo couldn’t quite place.  
“There is nothing wrong with your body, Maxwell,” Wufei said in a low, fierce voice.  
“I - ‘Fei I am covered in scars. The burns on my chest alone are - look. The whole idea is to attend this party, get close to Lady Carmen and finally take her down. If we get thrown out because I’m a hideous mess then we’re never going to catch her. I’m sorry. I know you don’t want me telling you what to do or - or any of it,” Duo swallowed hard as he pictured himself tying Wufei’s naked body up, “but I just don’t see how this will work any other way. Your body is perfect, Wufei. No one will be disgusted looking at you.”  
Wufei sighed and rubbed at his temples.  
“Fine,” he said at last. “I will play the sub.”  
Sally smiled slightly and gave Wufei’s knee a soft pat.  
“I think that’s honestly the best decision, Duo’s nebulous insecurities about his body aside. There’s a store not far from here that should have the basics you will need. Would you like me to take you two shopping?”  
“No!” They said at the same time, both blushing. Bad enough that they had just had to have what essentially boiled down to a sex and bondage lesson from Sally. Duo felt fairly certain he would die of embarrassment if she took them shopping for bondage gear. She was practically like his sister, or his mother. It was - it was too much to even think about.  
Sally smirked.  
“Okay. Let me write down a list of the things you will need. I’d suggest you try to practice a few things before you leave on Friday.”  
“Practice?” Wufei asked.  
Sally nodded.  
“If you want to be convincing, you’re going to have to make it look like you two have been doing this for a while. Even if I tell Master Bolton you two are a new couple it wouldn’t make sense for you two to go to a party for your very first scene.”  
Practice. Sally wanted Duo to practice this on Wufei.  
The look on Wufei’s face suggested that he would rather be dying from a lack of oxygen than going through with this.  
Duo sighed and took the list from Sally.   
“Am I going to find the clothes I need here too?” He asked her.  
Sally shook her head.  
“No. Well, they do have fetish wear there but like I said, most of the Doms in Bolton’s circles wear formal attire. “  
Duo had to smirk.  
“I’m guessing my Preventers uniform is out of the question?”  
Sally rolled her eyes.  
“You don’t own a suit?”  
Duo shook his head in the negative.  
“I’ve always been able to get away with wearing the dress uniform.”  
“I’ll take you suit shopping,” Wufei growled.  
Duo arched an eyebrow at him.  
“I’ve seen what you think passes for fashionable, Maxwell. You might be worried about the civilians seeing your scars, but I’m more concerned with us getting kicked out because of your terrible taste in clothing.”  
Duo glared at him but he couldn’t really argue the point. He did have a reputation for dressing poorly. If it wasn’t all black clothes or his Preventers uniform he tended to wear what Wufei had once dubbed ‘centuries out of fashion’ clothes.  
As he and Wufei walked to the parking garage in tense silence, Duo had to wonder how the hell this could possibly end in anything other than disaster.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Valentine’s gift fic for Maevemauvaise. I have to also give a huge thanks to Amberlyinviolet for being super patient with some D/s questions from me as well as doing a great beta read. Any mistakes you see are my own and NOT her fault though.  
A/N #2: This fic is complete in five parts and I will be posting a chapter every day or as I get it edited. So you’re not going to be waiting months or years for updates on this. And yes, I’m working on updates for my WIPs.

Warnings: D/s, BDSM, fluff, angst, violence, language, smutty smut smut (of the 2x5 variety only). Also cliches because… I really wanted to do some fun things. And a few Star Wars quotes because Star Wars.  
Pairings: 2X5, 3xR

True Romance  
Part 2

“So are you going to tell me why you don’t want the mission?”  
Trowa looked up from the mug of beer in front of him and saw Heero.  
Heero arched an eyebrow in judgement as he looked at the two already empty glasses in front of Trowa.  
Considering that in eleven hours Trowa would find himself on a shuttle with Relena, headed for the moon and what would no doubt be the absolute worst weekend of his life, Trowa had decided to spend a few hours getting drunk at his favorite dive bar.  
He wasn’t even surprised that Heero had decided to track him down. The man was obsessed with Relena’s safety and it wasn’t as if Trowa had managed to hide his apathy for this mission at all.  
“What happens if I say no?” Trowa asked after taking another sip of beer.  
“Then I’ll have to beat it out of you,” Heero deadpanned.  
Trowa snorted a laugh. Heero might be joking, but he probably wasn’t.  
Heero sighed and pulled up a chair. He straddled the back of it and looked steadily at Heero.  
“It’s not… I care about her safety,” Trowa assured Heero.  
Heero nodded.  
Trowa sighed when Heero appeared completely unsatisfied with that response.  
“I might have said or done something in the past that I’m not eager to have thrown back in my face,” Trowa finally admitted.  
Heero lifted his eyebrows.  
“If you thought that answer was going to do anything other than make me more curious you’re losing your touch.”  
“Two years ago - do you remember the War Memorial?”  
“The Christmas Party?” Heero asked with disdain.  
Trowa nodded. “The same.”  
“Of course I remember it. Duo was in the hospital and we didn’t know if he was going to make it.”  
Trowa nodded again. He and Duo had been assigned an incredibly dangerous mission that had gone bad in just about every possible way. They had barely made it out alive and Duo had almost died trying to save Trowa from getting stabbed in the back.  
Trowa hadn’t wanted to attend the damn party - none of them had. But Wufei had been the one to draw the short straw and stay behind with Duo while Heero and Trowa were sent off to the party to represent the Preventers.  
Trowa had been furious with Une, with Duo, with everyone there at the damn party but more than anything else he had been furious with himself. Not only had he almost gotten Duo killed, but he had realized, as he was frantically cussing at Duo and demanding he stay conscious while trying to staunch his bleeding, that he cared about Duo. That Duo was more than his partner, more than someone with a shared, fucked up past had caught Trowa by surprise. And he would very possibly die. Because of Trowa.  
He had been five drinks in when Relena asked him to dance. He had agreed to it and then found himself in the utterly miserable position of having her ask him how Duo was while they were in the middle of the crowded ballroom. He had choked, stumbled and fled the ballroom. And of course she had followed him, because Relena Darlian was nothing if not persistent as hell. She had put her hand on his shoulder and Trowa had cried. It had been humiliating and he had never felt so useless and impotent as he had when she wrapped her arms around him and let him cry into her hair. Just as he had felt the immense pressure of anxiety start to lift, just as he found himself almost able to breath again, he had the intense urge to vomit. Trowa had only narrowly managed to avoid Relena, practically tackling her to get her out of the way.  
As soon as he was able to pull himself together, he had walked away from her and left the party, protocol and Une’s wishes be damned. He hadn’t spoken to her alone since then.  
“Relena and I… it’s nothing,” Trowa eventually said. “It’s going to be fine. I’m just not enthusiastic about the idea of pretending to be her boyfriend for the weekend.”  
“You’ve gone undercover posing as Duo’s boyfriend before.”  
“Your point?”  
“My point is I don’t understand why this is so problematic for you. You and Relena get along. You don’t have to sleep with her - just hold her hand and kiss her a few times.”  
Trowa arched an eyebrow.  
“Is that what you do with Mark? Hold hands?”  
Heero glared and Trowa had to smirk at the successful derailment.  
“Of course we don’t hold hands. That would be ridiculous.”  
“But it’s not ridiculous for Relena and I to hold hands in our fake relationship?”  
“Of course it isn’t. You’re her arm candy.”  
“I’m her what?”  
Now it was Heero’s turn to smirk.  
“I read the cover that Duo came up with. You’re a male model she met through a mutual friend. You’re there to look pretty so she can show you off - which she will do by holding your hand and parading you around.”  
Trowa had been none too pleased to discover what his cover was. He was sure it was Duo getting him back for bitching about the mission in the first place. A male model. He wasn’t even sure it was believable that Relena, of all people, would have much in common with a model.   
Trowa sniffed.  
“The modeling lets me travel the Earthsphere. And I’m not going to be ashamed of being so ridiculously good looking.”  
“Yeah. That’s the personality that won her over.”  
Trowa finished off his beer and decided, all in all, he should probably call it a night. It really would not improve the situation to be hungover for the flight to the moon.  
He settled his tab, unsurprised that Heero was waiting for him.  
“I’ll take care of her,” he promised.  
Heero nodded.  
“I’ll kill you if anything happens to her.”  
Trowa rolled his eyes.  
“Trust me, if anything happens to her I’ll already be dead.”

-o-

“So… how do you want to do this?”  
They had put it off until the night before they left on the mission, but Wufei had finally agreed to come over to Duo’s apartment so they could ‘practice’ their cover.  
He had flat out refused to dress the part for their rehearsal, however.  
Shopping for his costume had been something between horrifying and humiliating. They had finally found something that seemed to fit Sally’s bill of more or less naked - black mesh briefs that left very little to the imagination. They had both drawn the line at Wufei being completely naked, however, and from the selection of bottoms the mesh briefs had been the least offensive to Wufei.  
When he had arrived at Duo’s apartment he had immediately spotted the black bag that Duo had purchased to store the toys in. He frowned at the sight of it, at the reminder of all of this.  
Wufei folded his arms over his chest.  
“Sally said we would either be invited to use the equipment or we would have to wait our turn but either way…”  
“Either way we should practice me tying you up. There’s a chance they might have cuffs available, but if they don’t…”  
Wufei nodded. He looked around Duo’s small studio apartment for a location that would be suitable for this exercise.  
“How sturdy is your dining room table?” Wufei asked, eyeing it.  
“Sturdy enough I hope,” Duo responded with a slight smirk, the expression conveying humor and his own anxiety over the situation.  
That reminder did quite a bit to soothe Wufei’s own anxiety. It was good to know that he wasn’t the only one deeply uncomfortable with this.  
“I ah…” Duo scratched his jaw. “Do you want to do this with your clothes on or…?”  
He really didn’t want to take his clothes off, but there was no point in keeping them on, not if they were trying to do an accurate simulation.  
With a sigh, Wufei started to undress.  
Duo watched him for a second, then turned away and started to root around in his bag for the rope.  
Wufei stripped down to his briefs and laid his folded clothes on the arm of the couch before following Duo over to the kitchen table and helping him clear it off.  
“Let me get a towel for you,” Duo stopped him from laying down on it with a hand on his shoulder.  
“Should I lay down on my back or my stomach?” Wufei wondered aloud.  
“I guess it depends on what all we’re doing? Sally said that they usually have that ice station. It sounded pretty tame compared to some of the other things. Do you want to give that a try?” Duo suggested.  
Wufei looked over at him, noting the blush on his cheeks.  
“Do you have any ice?”   
Duo nodded.  
“Might as well,” Wufei agreed. “I’ll lay on my back?”  
It wasn’t until he was stretched out and Duo was securing his wrists to the legs of the table that Wufei realized what a terrible idea this had been.   
As soon as Duo straightened up and looked over his body Wufei felt himself grow entirely too aware of the other man’s gaze.  
“Right, uh - shit. We should have done this first, but Sally said to make sure we had a safeword? What do you want to use?”  
“Ting,” Wufei responded. It was the Mandarin word for stop - something he wasn’t likely to hear from someone else and one that would come naturally to him.  
Duo nodded. “Right. So if you say that I’ll stop. I’m going to get some ice - are you sure the rope isn’t too tight?”  
Wufei tugged at his bonds. They were tight, but he wasn’t in danger of losing circulation to his limbs.  
“I’m fine,” he assured Duo.  
“Okay so… I’ve never done this before.”  
“And here I was thinking you were a master of kink,” Wufei muttered.  
Duo gave him a look and Wufei sighed.  
“You sure you can do this?” Duo asked him.  
“Honestly? I don’t know. But that’s the whole point of practising, isn’t it?”  
Duo nodded.  
“I’d tell you to relax but you’d only scowl at me again,” Duo said, his slight smirk back. “So just try focusing on your breathing. Remember when we were gonna die on the Lunar Base?”  
“Not something I’m likely to forget.”  
“Right. Well, remember how you didn’t panic - you focused on your breathing and your heart rate and you kept your shit together.”  
Wufei closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, letting it fill his lungs and diaphragm completely. He released it slowly, visualizing the air leaving his body.  
A few more breaths and he could already feel himself calmer.  
He opened his eyes and nodded at Duo.  
“So like, I don’t think I should dive right in with the ice. I was doing some reading and I should touch you with my hands first - so don’t freak out on me.”  
Duo moved so that he was standing above Wufei’s head and he put his hands on Wufei’s shoulders, the pressure light.  
“Okay?”  
Wufei nodded.  
“Good, good.” Duo slowly moved his hands down Wufei’s chest, brushing over his pectorals and down to his abdomen in a light, ghost of a touch. Nonetheless it made Wufei shiver.  
“Still okay?” Duo asked.  
Wufei nodded again and decided he should close his eyes. The sight of Duo’s frown of concentration was too distracting for him.  
Duo’s hands traveled back up to his shoulders and down his arms, the touch firmer now, and Wufei relaxed against the table.  
He focused on his breathing again, tried to think of nothing else aside from the air slowly going in, and then back out. In. And out. In. And out.  
In. And -  
Duo had switched to the ice.  
Wufei felt the sudden, painful shock of the ice as Duo dragged it across his chest and he hissed.  
Duo stopped.  
“Fei?”  
“I’m fine,” Wufei said, telling himself he was. Telling himself he absolutely was not in any possible way aroused from the feeling of Duo trailing the ice in a circle around his navel.   
Not aroused. Not aroused. Not aroused. Not aroused. Not -  
He moaned when Duo traced the ice over his nipples.   
“Do you want me to stop?” Duo asked.  
“No,” Wufei said. “Don’t stop.”  
He realized how that must have sounded - realized just how obviously he was enjoying this and he squeezed his eyes closed even tighter, humiliated.  
“I think it’s kind of natural, isn’t it, to react to this sensation?” Duo suggested, clearly noticing Wufei’s very definitely aroused state.  
“I know it hurts but it’s also got to feel good - the extreme sensation - or else people wouldn’t do this, right?” Duo continued, his voice soothing.   
Duo brushed the ice over Wufei’s lips, his cheeks, and his jaw before returning to his chest.  
“This probably won’t feel as pleasurable,” Duo said. “I’m going to hold a piece in one place for a few seconds. When it’s too much just nod and I’ll move it - or say the safeword and I’ll stop everything obviously.”  
Wufei nodded and found himself holding his breath in anticipation.  
A heartbeat later Wufei felt the sharp, frozen sting of the ice on his left nipple. Duo continued to hold the ice in place with one hand, while he gently rubbed Wufei’s right shoulder with his other hand.  
Wufei found himself drawing in shallow, uneven breaths as the sting became more and more painful. He wasn’t sure how long Duo held the piece in place, but it seemed like they reached their limit of comfort at the same time - Duo moved the ice just as Wufei started to nod his head.  
“Okay, um, I don’t think I can hold it in place any longer than that without it getting too painful afterwards. How badly does it hurt right now?”  
“It’s not intolerable,” Wufei assured him. He felt a strange sense of accomplishment, of pride even as the pain flared and then slowly, so very slowly started to fade.  
“Let’s do a few more minutes of this then,” Duo suggested.  
Wufei nodded.  
Duo alternated between holding the ice in one place and running it over Wufei’s skin. The latter produced enough pleasure that Wufei found his briefs growing uncomfortably tight while the former had him sucking in deep breaths and biting his lip.   
It almost felt like an eternity when Duo set the ice aside.  
He felt the soft press of a towel against his skin.  
“I just want to dry you off a bit and then I’m going to untie you,” Duo explained.  
Wufei slowly opened his eyes, blinking against the light in the room.  
Duo untied him quickly, methodically undoing the knots he had tied before.  
“Hang here for just a minute, okay?” Duo asked.  
Wufei frowned but he didn’t move.  
Duo walked into his kitchen and Wufei heard running water.  
A moment later, Duo returned, a wet washcloth in one hand.  
“It’s hot - not too hot I hope.” He pressed it against the back of Wufei’s hand. “That feel okay?”  
“Yes.”  
“Good. I read that heat should help with any residual pain. Does that - does that feel okay?”  
Duo gently ran the towel across Wufei’s chest. Wufei had found the trail of ice arousing. But this -  
It felt more than okay. It felt entirely too good, in fact.  
“I’m fine,” Wufei growled and pushed Duo’s hand away before he embarrassed himself even further.  
Duo frowned.  
“Are you sure? Sally said - and I was doing some reading - that aftercare is really important. I don’t want you to -”  
“I said I’m fine, Maxwell. This isn’t - this isn’t real. You don’t have to treat it like it is.”  
“Wufei, you could get hurt. I need to make sure that doesn’t happen. I can’t be responsible for hurting you. Not you.”  
Wufei scowled at him.  
“I said I was fine,” he snapped.  
But Duo was still frowning, still had that concerned look on his face.  
Wufei sighed and grabbed the hot towel from his hands and used it on himself, brusquely wiping over his arms and torso.  
“There. I’m fine.”  
He tossed the towel back at Duo, who caught it in one hand.  
“What else should we try?” Wufei asked, his trepidation for this entire endeavor back in full force.  
“Well, we have a flogger and a few whips - a paddle… I don’t think I need to tie you up again, unless you do? But I think we should test at least one of those before we leave.”  
Wufei sighed. If ice had been that difficult - what was this next step going to be like?  
“I don’t want to be tied up again,” he decided.  
Duo nodded.  
“That’s probably good anyway - this is going to be a lot more intense than just the ice.”  
Of course it was. And if Wufei had managed to humiliate himself at just the touch of the ice what was he going to do next? At this rate he was going to have to request a transfer after this mission so that he never had to see Duo’s look of concern again, never had to look at the way he bit on his lower lip when he was concentrating or -  
“Maybe you should kneel down on all fours?” Duo suggested, interrupting Wufei’s thoughts. “I, ah, I tried out the flogger a bit, to get a feel for it and I think it’s what I’ve got the best handle on.”  
Wufei nodded and finally rose from the table.  
He drew in a deep breath, almost unable to believe he was about to do this, and positioned himself on the living room rug.  
He felt completely ridiculous - nearly naked, his ass up in the air, a few strands of his hair undone and clinging to his face, wet from the ice and the hot towel. He didn’t even want to begin to wonder what Duo was thinking as he looked at him.  
Out of the corner of his eye Wufei saw Duo kneel down beside him, saw him place the black suede flogger on the floor beside Wufei’s hand.  
“Okay, so the goal is for this to hurt but not - not to be more than you can tolerate. So you’re going to need to tell me if I need to lighten up, okay? Wufei?”   
He sighed.  
“Yes, I understand the concept Maxwell.”  
It was Duo’s turn to sigh.  
“Fei, do you want -”  
“Just get on with it. The sooner we do this, the sooner it will be over.”  
He felt Duo’s hands on his back a moment later, the touch light, tender even and Wufei swallowed hard.  
He let his head fall so that his forehead rested against the carpet and he closed his eyes again.  
This was more intimate contact in one night than he had had months. He had to wonder what was more pathetic - that fact or the fact that he had spent years wondering what it would be like to have Duo’s hands caressing his naked flesh?  
Wufei could feel his body relaxing into Duo’s touch, could feel his arousal begin to return and he knew his face and chest were flushed.  
“Just get on it with,” Wufei demanded. “There’s no need to waste time with this - this -” he struggled to say the word, “foreplay.”  
“This is part of it, Fei,” Duo said, his voice somehow gentle and firm at the same time. It sounded just like his touch felt. “This stuff isn’t just me tying you up and causing you pain. It’s about pleasure too and it’s about trust. If we go in there and you stiffen up and glare at me the whole time it’s going to be obvious you don’t trust me. It’s going to be obvious we don’t belong together and that you don’t enjoy this and it might get us killed. So, no pressure or anything but we need to practice the foreplay. And the aftercare. And everything in between.”  
“Everything?”  
Sally had said that while some couples engaged in scenes that were strictly about Dominance and submission or bondage or discipline, at Bolton’s gatherings very few - if any - were devoid of sexual play as well.  
“Can you trust me, Fei?” Duo asked.  
Wufei shivered as he felt Duo’s palm glide down his spine.  
Of course he trusted Duo. The idiot had risked his life more times than Wufei could count to protect him. He knew Duo cared about him, knew Duo didn’t want to hurt him, knew that Duo was likely just as uncomfortable with this whole damn thing as Wufei himself was.  
The issue wasn’t trusting Duo. The issue was trusting himself. He was convinced he was going to look like a fool to Duo, convinced he was going to allow himself to get carried away by this and humiliate himself even further.  
While he and Duo had not been close during the war, even after their near death experience, in the years since they had developed a close friendship that Wufei considered to be one of the anchors of his existence. The fact that he had been battling an attraction to his comrade all of these years was a nuisance, an annoyance that he was able to push aside most days.   
But now Wufei was quite literally exposed.  
“It’s just physical sensation, Fei. I know it’s not - I know you hate not having absolute control over your body or your reactions but just remember it’s just sensation. It’s nothing more than you reacting to stimulation and it doesn’t mean anything. After this weekend, all of this is just - it’s just going to be classified mission details and you won’t have to go through any of this ever again.”  
While Duo was clearly trying to comfort Wufei, his insistence that this meant nothing and that it would be forgotten were doing almost the opposite.  
How pathetic was it that Wufei wanted this to mean something? Wanted this degrading act to make Duo feel the things Wufei was feeling?  
“So yeah, we need to practice everything. Once you feel like you’re ready, I’ll use the flogger on you. I want you to try the breathing again - it seemed to work for a while before. And after - when you get to the point of being done is there… is there something you can say so I know to stop with the flogger but not to stop everything?”  
“Bu zai,” Wufei offered.   
“Okay, good, good. So when you’ve reached the point where you really can’t handle more of the flogger just say bu zai and I’ll… I don’t want to do more than you can take, Wufei.”  
“Just do what you need to do, Maxwell. It’s a mission. This isn’t about my personal preferences or -”  
“No, but if this doesn’t look convincing, then we’re fucked, so it kind of is about your personal preferences. And I know I’m not - hell, I know that even if this wasn’t for the mission I wouldn’t be someone you want to be intimate, with and I’m not asking you to tell me all of your erogenous spots or your secrets, but I at least need to know what you’re comfortable with - maybe even a few things that you enjoy?”  
Wufei wished a black hole would suck him away from all of this.  
Duo really didn’t think that Wufei would want to be intimate with him? Was he really so blind?  
“Like I said, do what you need to do.” He hesitated and he could feel the heat from his flushed cheeks. “I like biting.”  
“Okay. Biting. I can work with that.”  
Throughout the entire negotiation, Duo had continued to massage Wufei’s back, but now his hands trailed down to Wufei’s thighs, kneading the muscles there.  
“Is there somewhere you don’t want me to touch you? Anything you absolutely don’t want me to do?”  
“No,” Wufei groaned, furious with himself for enjoying Duo’s touch so much. “You can - you can do whatever you need to.”  
“Okay. Let’s give this a try, yeah?” Duo shifted and a moment later Wufei felt the whisper of the suede tails on the flogger on his back.  
He had to suck in a breath and he felt his heart drumming in his chest, felt his blood rushing in his ears and he clenched his hands into fists. He held his breath and he felt his entire body tense, felt so much anxiety at the thought of what was going to happen next that his lips even started to form the word ting but then the first blow landed.  
It was sharper than he had thought it would be, the tails feeling like eighteen frozen burns of ice against his thighs.  
He drew in a gasping breath and he felt Duo’s hand on his shoulder, his grip firm.  
“You okay?”  
Wufei nodded.   
“I’m going to keep going then. Just remember - tell me when.”  
Duo hit him again, higher up this time, directly on his ass and Wufei rocked forward slightly at the blow. His cotton briefs only provided minimal protection, and even then not to his entire ass.  
It was another three blows before Wufei was able to force himself to breathe deeply, to focus on the act of pulling in air and then releasing it.  
It was another two blows before he felt himself start to drift into into a space somewhere between the physical sensation of pain from the flogger and the mental exercise of breathing. He felt… adrift. Not quite numb but not entirely present either. He felt simultaneously hyper aware of his body, of the pain Duo was inflicting, and yet somehow separated from it.   
Duo’s hand shifted from his back to his chest, his strong fingers trailing over Wufei’s pectorals in a way that almost brought Wufei out of his headspace but not quite.  
Duo continued to hit him and Wufei lost count of just how many times the flogger had been raised, of just how long they had been doing this. He felt himself start to lose track of his own body until suddenly he felt the sharp pinch of Duo’s fingers on his left nipple, twisting it hard enough that Wufei grunted.  
He felt himself come crashing back to reality when the next blow of the flogger landed on his ass and he no longer felt distanced from the pain. It suddenly felt very nearly overwhelming - the ache of his back, his thighs and his ass; the anticipation of the next blow; his own thundering pulse and his unexpected and wholly unwanted erection; Duo’s fingers touching him in places, in ways, that he had never dreamed would happen.  
“Bu zai,” Wufei gasped. “Bu zai.”  
He vaguely heard the soft thud of the flogger as Duo dropped it and for a moment he felt nothing at all - not Duo’s touch, not even the burning ache of lust or pain and he drew in a shuddery breath.  
And then he felt everything as Duo pressed an open kiss to the base of his spine. He felt the heat of Duo’s mouth, felt the roughness of his tongue, the sharp smoothness of his teeth as they dug ever so slightly into his flesh and Wufei moaned.  
He rocked forward, partially in an effort to bury his face in the carpet and just die from the humiliation he felt at hearing that sound come from his own mouth and partly in an effort to find some kind of friction against his hard cock, trapped in his briefs.  
Duo mapped his way across Wufei’s back with kisses and bites, all the while kneading Wufei’s thighs and ass with his hands, all the while teasing Wufei without giving him any kind of release or even any hope of it.  
“Please,” he felt himself beg. “Please.”  
He wasn’t even sure what he was begging for.  
One of Duo’s hands cupped Wufei’s cock over the cotton of his briefs. His touch was light, loose even and Wufei rocked into it, desperate for more.  
He let out a sigh of relief when Duo’s hand tightened.  
“Mhn. Please.”  
Duo’s breath was hot against Wufei’s back and he felt the press of Duo’s lips again on his spine just as Duo slipped one hand up the leg of Wufei’s briefs and eased his cock free.  
Wufei bit his lip when Duo’s fingers formed a fist around his cock and gave an experimental stroke.  
He wanted to cry out. Wanted to beg for more. Wanted -  
Duo bit down on the flesh between Wufei’s left shoulder and his neck and he gave a hoarse shout of shock as he came.  
Almost immediately he realized just how completely awful this was.  
He had begged Duo for sex. He had moaned, he had cried out, he had - he had come into Duo’s hand and he was sure that if he opened his eyes he would see the stain of his semen on Duo’s rug and what the hell had he just done?  
He felt his pulse start to race, felt his stomach roil and he struggled to sit up, pushing Duo away from him in the process.  
“Wufei -”  
“Don’t,” Wufei warned and held up his hands. He turned his face away from Duo’s. He couldn’t see whatever Duo was feeling, didn’t want to know what he was thinking.   
He rose to his feet, ashamed when he stumbled a little.  
Duo was immediately there, reaching out for him but Wufei pushed him away again.  
“Leave me alone, Maxwell.”  
“Fei, what - what did I - what can I do?”  
“Nothing. Nothing. It - we practiced this. We did it. Now I’m leaving.”  
“Wufei you can’t just - let me -”  
“You’ve done enough. And I can do whatever the hell I want, Maxwell. This is all an act, remember?”  
Wufei allowed himself a single fierce glare in Duo’s direction.  
He regretted it as soon as he saw the look of shock on Duo’s face change to one of deep hurt.  
Wufei turned away from him and grabbed for his clothes with numb fingers.  
“Fei, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t - I -”  
Wufei felt his fingers fumble over the buttons on his dress shirt and he felt the sharp, hateful prick of tears in his eyes.  
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck this, fuck everything.  
He drew in a deep breath and decided to hell with it and left his shirt open while he pulled on his trousers. Maybe he would be able to button it up once he was out of Duo’s apartment, once he was away from the smell of sex, the soft rug under his feet, the sensation of Duo’s fingers and his mouth and -  
Duo stepped forward and caught Wufei’s hands as he struggled with the button on his trousers as well.  
He felt a single tear leave his eye as Duo pushed the button through the hole.  
Wufei furiously swiped at his face while Duo did up the buttons on his shirt as well and he felt himself actually choke on a sob as Duo smoothed his hands down Wufei’s chest after he buttoned the top button.  
“Fei,” Duo tried again, his voice soft, pleading. “Fei, please tell me what I can do.”  
“Let me go,” Wufei ground out. “Let me go and just - just don’t talk to me or look at me more than absolutely necessary during this mission.”  
Before Duo could respond, before Wufei could even judge the impact of his request on the other man, Wufei turned and awkwardly forced his feet into his shoes and fled the apartment.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Valentine’s gift fic for Maevemauvaise. I have to also give a huge thanks to Amberlyinviolet for being super patient with some D/s questions from me as well as doing a great beta read. Any mistakes you see are my own and NOT her fault though.  
A/N #2: This fic is complete in five parts and I will be posting a chapter every day or as I get it edited. So you’re not going to be waiting months or years for updates on this. And yes, I’m working on updates for my WIPs.

Warnings: D/s, BDSM, fluff, angst, violence, language, smutty smut smut (of the 2x5 variety only). Also cliches because… I really wanted to do some fun things. And a few Star Wars quotes because Star Wars.  
Pairings: 2X5, 3xR

True Romance  
Part 3

“Oh, sorry, excuse us.”  
Trowa turned at the sound of a familiar voice.  
Duo and Wufei stood in the aisle behind him, each holding a travel bag, weary expressions on their faces.  
Trowa arched an eyebrow.  
“Sorry, our seat is just past you,” Duo gestured to the two open seats further up in the first class cabin of the shuttle.  
Trowa had to smirk as he moved aside to let them pass.  
For almost every undercover op that he and Duo had ever run they had been subjected to the worst possible shuttle accommodations. It seemed, however, that Duo had been able to convince Une that travelling in first class was essential to his and Wufei’s identities for this mission.  
“Headed to the moon?” Duo asked as he stored first his and then Wufei’s bags in the overhead compartment above their seats.  
“Unless you know of a stop in between?” Trowa asked.  
Duo smirked and then held out a hand.  
“I’m Max Brown and this is my fiance, Fai Song.”  
Trowa shook Duo’s hand and then Wufei’s.  
“Alex Haber. My girlfriend and I are going to a friend’s wedding at the Achelois resort.”  
“No kidding? We’re headed there too - not for a wedding though.”  
They had decided that it might be useful for their missions to have a reason to interact and Wufei had been the one to suggest, two days ago, that Duo be his ‘usual over-friendly and obnoxious self’ and introduce them on the shuttle.  
Duo looked past Trowa at the empty seats behind him.  
“Your girlfriend of the invisible variety?” He asked.  
Trowa rolled his eyes.  
“No, she’s of the signing an autograph for the cabin crew variety.”  
Duo lifted his eyebrows.  
“She’s someone famous or just that gorgeous?”  
“Both,” Trowa gave a long suffering sigh. “Which has its benefits but also its drawbacks.”  
Duo nodded and it looked like he was about to continue the conversation when the woman in question herself walked over. She looped her arm through Trowa’s and smiled broadly at Duo.  
“Well hello - do you and Alex know each other?”  
“Just met. I’m Max and this is my fiance Fai. Are you - holy crap are you Queen Relena?”  
Relena rolled her eyes.  
“Just plain Relena.” She held out her free hand.  
Duo shook it and winked.  
“I don’t know if I’d ever call you plain,” Duo disagreed.  
“Didn’t I tell you she was gorgeous?” Trowa said.  
She smirked and leaned her head on Trowa’s shoulder.  
Trowa fought very hard to remain at ease.  
He had met Relena at the shuttle gate less than an hour ago, taking over from her usual security detail and falling into his role as her boyfriend as easily as he managed most undercover assignments. He took her bags in one hand and kissed her on the lips in greeting. She had smiled politely at him, had wrestled her bags back from him and even brushed away his hand when he reached for hers.   
It was not going well. Or at all according to plan.  
“Max, let them take their seats,” Wufei spoke up.  
He sounded tired and he looked… tense.  
Trowa arched an eyebrow at Duo, who had lost his friendly grin and merely gave Trowa a brief shake of his head.   
So apparently things weren’t going according to plan with them either.  
“When you get bored in a few hours just remember we’re only a row down!” Duo joked as he took his seat beside Wufei.  
Trowa felt confident that during the eighteen-hour flight he would find himself desperate for their company at least once.  
He nodded and then stood aside so that Relena could take the window seat before sitting down beside her.  
They were silent during the takeout, Relena pulling out what looked entirely too much like official paperwork for someone claiming to be on vacation as soon as they were cleared to move about the cabin.  
Trowa watched her reading and making notes, his eyes draw to her lips when she tapped her pen against them as she read. It was distracting but it also made Trowa smile. It seemed like such an innocent and thoughtless gesture, not at all something that a woman with that much political capital would be doing.  
“You’re staring at me,” Relena murmured, not looking up from her work.  
“I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on you,” Trowa pointed out defensively.  
“Afraid I’m going to die of a papercut?” She asked and looked over at him.  
Trowa narrowed his eyes.  
Relena sighed.  
“Listen, I don’t need - are you sure you wouldn’t be more useful working with the others on whatever they are up to?”  
“How do you know they aren’t part of your escort detail?”  
Relena glared at him.  
“Because Une promised me that you were the only one I had to put up with. If she’s going behind my back to -”  
Trowa held up one hand to forestall what promised to be a furious tirade. He had heard Relena complain about her security details before. At length.  
“They aren’t. They have a separate mission.”  
Relena let out a huff of either relief or annoyance and settled back in with her paperwork.  
It was an hour later when she spoke again.  
“How did you get saddled with me anyway? I know you don’t particularly like me so I doubt you volunteered.”  
Trowa raised an eyebrow at that, but she wasn’t looking at him.  
“It was decided that Heero couldn’t do it, and Une would rather cut off her own arm than deal with whatever debacle you and Wufei would find yourselves in.” Relena smirked fondly at that. “And Duo said something about not being able to work with someone who had even more rigorous hair care standards than he does.”  
“He did not,” Relena scoffed.  
“I don’t dislike you,” Trowa felt the need to say.  
“You don’t have to lie to me, T - Alex.”  
“I’m not lying. I’ve always admired you. Especially after what you did to that bastard from L1.”  
Relena looked up from her papers and smiled at him.  
Trowa felt himself smiling back. It seemed natural, easy - and maybe it was for his cover. But maybe it wasn’t. He found his smile faltering as he realized he didn’t quite know.  
Relena’s own smile disappeared.  
“Oh, no. No, no, no. I am not doing this again.” She shook her head.  
“Doing - what?”  
“Don’t smile at me like that. Don’t make jokes and pretend - don’t you dare do this to me again, Tr - Alex.”  
“What the hell are you talking about?” Trowa asked her in as quiet a voice as he could. “You want me to avoid smiling at my girlfriend for the weekend? You want me to be silent and dull?”  
“That’s not -” she took in a deep breath. “Nevermind. You’re right. I’m sorry. Just… let me get back to my work. I need to have figure out this briefing before my conference call in two hours.”  
“I thought you were taking a vacation, Relena.”  
She scoffed.  
“I am, which is why I only have four conference calls this weekend instead of twelve.”  
At his shocked look she shook her head.  
“You all think I just sit around and play dress up don’t you?”  
“That’s not at all what I think,” Trowa assured her.  
“Then that look -”  
“I think it’s ridiculous that you can’t have even a shuttle flight to yourself without having to worry about whatever crisis is threatening the Earthsphere,” he explained.  
“Oh. Oh.” Her face softened. “I’m sure the Earthsphere would survive without me, but -”  
“I’m not so sure,” he disagreed and then waved towards her work. “Get back to it. I won’t bother you anymore.”  
She looked at him for a long, silent moment before shaking her head and then looking back down at her papers.

-o-

Relena dropped her bags beside the bed and felt a sense of profound relief.  
It had been less than a day - just an eighteen-hour flight and the two hours it had taken to get from the shuttleport to their hotel suite - but already Relena felt as if she absolutely could not stand to do this for any longer.  
She heard the sound of Trowa locking the door to their suite and then his soft, almost imperceptible footsteps as he walked through the suite and into the bedroom.  
“I want to have a look in the closet and the bathroom but then I’ll let you have your privacy,” Trowa said.  
Relena nodded, not bothering to turn and look at him.  
She waited silently while he completed his inspection, just as thorough as Heero would have been.  
“Is there anything else on the itinerary today?” He asked her.  
She looked over at him and noticed a tightness around his eyes. Good. So he was miserable too.  
“Dinner with a few of the girls. You could just order room service if you didn’t want to go out or -”  
“I’m coming with you,” Trowa interrupted her.  
Relena folded her arms.  
“You don’t have to go to dinner with me. You’re clearly tired and neither one of us wants to spend time together after -” she hesitated.  
“After what?” He asked.  
“After the flight from hell,” she muttered, feeling almost as embarrassed as she was annoyed. She had been frustrated, not just with her work and the fruitless conference call with the colonial labor ministers, not just with the ever present reminders that as much power as she seemed to have she was still powerless in her own life, not just with Trowa for being his usual irresistible self; she had been frustrated with herself as well - with her seeming inability to get over a man who clearly tried to actively avoid her and had for years now.She had been frustrated and she had taken it out on Trowa during their flight, snapping at him and brushing off his attempts at conversation, and she had gone out of her way to annoy him on their way from the airport to the hotel, wading through crowds of people to sign autographs while he glowered at her side, no doubt calculating just how likely this was to result in her death. She had behaved badly and as much as she regretted it, she was still frustrated enough that she didn’t want to apologize to him for it and she knew that more than a little childish.  
“Oh.”  
Relena gave him a look.  
“You thought I was going to say something else?”  
“I did,” he confirmed but maddeningly didn’t elaborate.  
She glared at him and he arched an eyebrow in response.  
“Fine. Come with me and listen to a bunch of women gossip about people they went to highschool with.”  
“It sounds thrilling,” he snarked right back at her.  
“I’d like to shower now if you’ve decided it’s safe enough for me to use the bathroom. Or is there a chance someone hooked up poison to the shower head?”  
Trowa rolled his eyes and gestured towards the shower.  
“Have at it, princess.”  
She whirled around, ready to snap at him, but he was already gone from the bedroom, the door closing softly behind him.  
Relena forced herself to take in deep breaths and calm down.  
Trowa Barton was an asshole. She knew this. She had known this. Trowa Barton disliked her, probably despised her. All she needed to do was make it through the next forty-eight hours and then they would go back to having enough distance between them that it didn’t bother her as much.  
She kept telling herself that as she showered, scrubbing away a day’s worth of travel, but by the time she had dried her hair and applied fresh makeup she still felt a simmering anger towards the man and a fair amount of irritation with herself for caring at all.  
She changed into the gold sequin and lace cocktail dress that she had bought months ago for a date that she had later had to cancel due to a political emergency.  
She had never been able to reschedule the date, and the dress had hung in her closet almost as a mockery of her non-existent personal life ever since.  
She pinned her hair up, slipped into the gold pumps that, like the dress, had been purchased solely for the date that wasn’t to be, and looked at herself in the mirror.  
She looked tired, but she decided that she also looked good. She looked successful - she was successful. And maybe she wasn’t getting married to her high school sweetheart this weekend; maybe she wasn’t here with an actual boyfriend - but she was doing important work and she was no longer a teenaged girl desperate for the validation of her peers and parents. Especially not since she had lost her parents and especially since it had been made painfully clear to her that she had no peers.  
Tired of feeling sorry for herself, Relena stepped out of her bedroom and braced herself for an evening spent masquerading around with her fake boyfriend in front of girls who had barely tolerated her at school and had had no interaction with her since.  
“You aren’t wearing that.”  
Trowa was on the couch, long legs stretched out in front of him and resting on the coffee table, a beat-up paperback novel in one hand. He had changed into a dark gray three-piece suit that looked expensive and certainly fit into his cover as a male model.   
“What do you mean I’m not wearing this?” She demanded.  
Trowa scowled at her.  
“You don’t have anything less… noticeable?”  
She arched an eyebrow at him.  
“You’re,” Trowa gestured at her, “you’re going to be impossible not to notice. You might as well wear a sign that says ‘I’m the Queen of the World, please assassinate me.’”  
Relena clenched her jaw against the first few things she wanted to say to him.  
She drew in a deep breath and reminded herself that she was a diplomat. She was calm, cool, collected and -  
“You don’t have anything less sparkly? Or that shows less skin?”  
“Trowa. We are at the premier resort on the Moon. We are surrounded by people who spend a small colonies GDP on their wardrobe. I will not stand out because my dress sparkles and you can see my back.”  
“Your back?” Trowa got up from the couch and came towards her. “I was referring to the length. What - there is no back.” He said as he walked around her to see for himself.  
Relena whirled on him.  
“No. There is no back and it’s a cocktail dress Trowa. It’s supposed to be short. Do you really think that if I walked around in a floor length burlap sack I would be less likely to be assassinated?”  
Trowa rolled his eyes.  
“Don’t be ridiculous. You -”  
“No, you don’t be ridiculous,” she stabbed him in the chest with her finger. “I might not get to decide how I want to travel from my apartment to my office, I might not get to decide who is on my security detail, or who I eat my meals with or who my personal assistant is or what I get to wear for public events, but this is not a public event, and if you try to tell me that what I am wearing makes me some kind of target, so help me I will show you what Wufei and Duo have taught me how to do. This is my vacation, damnit, and I am going to wear my fancy clothes that I never get to wear anywhere else because I don’t have the time to even go out on a date. Do you understand?”  
Trowa stared at her for a solid minute. She arched an eyebrow when he remained silent.  
“I hear you, princess,” Trowa said.  
“And don’t call me princess! I -”  
“Queen then?”  
“It must be comforting to find yourself so amusing considering that no one else does.”  
“It’s not my fault I’m surrounded by plebeians.”  
Relena was startled out of her anger. She unwillingly laughed and Trowa smirked.  
“Are you finished yelling at me or should I go back to the couch and make myself comfortable?”  
“No. I’m finished for now.”  
Trowa nodded.  
“Make sure you remember to call me Alex outside this room. You called me Trowa just now.”  
Relena scowled at him.  
“Make sure you don’t try to tell me how to dress outside of this room and I don’t think I will lose my temper enough to slip up and call you Trowa.”

-o-

Growing up as a mercenary and a mechanic before trying his hand at terrorism had been, Trowa reflect as he sat with Relena and her rich childhood friends, if not a good childhood certainly more interesting that their youth had been.  
For the past two hours he had listened to the small group recollect stories about stealing horses or drinking illegally or driving illegally or, in the case of Jordan, the self-proclaimed rebel of the group, attending anit-OZ rallies.  
Trowa actually felt his brain go numb.  
“Tell us again how you two met,” Marie asked him just as Trowa found himself vaguely hoping a threat to Relena’s life presented itself. “It’s just… you’re so handsome and Relena’s always been obsessed with politics.”  
Beside him, Relena bristled at the comment.  
Trowa just smiled and twined their fingers together before resting their hands on the table.  
“I suppose it’s a good thing I am this handsome - she never would have noticed me otherwise.”  
Marie laughed.  
“We met at a charity event a few months ago,” Relena said with a sigh, tugging at her hand.  
Trowa kept his grip firm. It was the only contact between them all night and maybe she didn’t care too much about the two of them looking like an actual couple, but this was Trowa’s job.  
“And what is it that you do, Alex?” Amy’s fiance Mark asked.  
“I’m a model.”  
The entire table stared at them.  
Relena sighed.  
“Is there something wrong with that?” She asked and it was in the voice that Heero and Duo had labeled her Crusader Voice. Trowa winced.  
“No, no, it’s just… I didn’t realize you would have much in common with a… model,” Amy mumbled.  
“Why wouldn’t I? Just because Alex poses for photographs as his job that doesn’t mean that is the only thing he can do with his life. He works with a wonderful charity group. He cares about politics. After the war he volunteered with the colonial rebuilding projects. I’m honestly not sure I could find someone I have more in common with.”  
The table was still staring.  
“And we do share excellent taste in clothes,” Trowa added.  
A few of Relena’s friends laughed weakly at that, but it did the trick to break the tension.  
Trowa leaned close to Relena and whispered against her ear.  
“You do realize that not every argument has to become a battle, don’t you princess?”  
When he pulled back she was glaring at him.  
“Well, I think we were going to have a look at the Lunar Lounge - anyone care to join us?” Mark suggested a few minutes later after everyone had settled their bills for the meal.  
Most of the group demurred.  
“I think we’ll call it a night too,” Relena said as they rose from the table.  
“No, we should go,” Trowa argued. “This is the first vacation you’ve had since I’ve known you. You should enjoy it.”  
“Darling, do you really feel up to going to a dance club after we spent the entire day on a flight?” Relena asked him.  
“Of course - when else am I going to get you to relax and enjoy yourself?”  
Relena’s glare softened slightly and Trowa hoped that she recognized his apology for earlier.  
“If you’re sure?” She asked.  
Trowa nodded.  
He doubted she would be at any greater risk in an exclusive club that she had been in the restaurant.   
Besides, he had read about the Lunar Lounge - the entire ceiling of the club was a trans-steel bubble that provided a three-hundred and sixty degree view of space. It had been a long time since he had been able to get such an unhindered view of the earth and space. Not to mention Duo, with his passion for interstellar architecture, would be jealous when Trowa described it to him after the mission.  
As it turned out, the Lunar Lounge was far more crowded than Trowa would have thought possible.  
They lost track of Relena’s friends almost immediately, and while that was no loss in Trowa’s book nor, he suspected, in Relena’s, the sheer number of people in the club put him on edge.  
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Trowa had to practically shout in her ear to be heard over the music.  
“Maybe not,” she agreed but instead of moving towards the entrance she moved farther into the club.  
Trowa reached out and grabbed her hand.  
Relena looked down at their hands and then up at his face.  
“Please stay close to me,” he said.  
She looked ready to argue but someone bumped into her from behind and she staggered forward into his arms.  
Trowa caught her and he experienced a moment of deja vu. Except, unlike the last time she had been in his arms two years ago, he wasn’t drunk or horribly depressed. This time he was perfectly sober and only slightly irritated - and more than capable of cataloguing the facts that she still wore the same perfume, her hair was just as smooth and soft as it had been that night, and her blue eyes just as impossible to avoid looking into.  
Trowa let her regain her balance and then stepped back.  
They stared at each other for a moment, but then Relena’s gaze shifted above Trowa and to the ceiling of the club.  
Trowa looked up as well and his breath caught at the sheer beauty of the view.  
Duo had to see this, he decided. While Trowa had a love/hate relationship with space, he knew that the L2 colonist would have happily spent the rest of his life in an EVA suit if he could. The man loved the dark simplicity of space, the glitter of light and life, the distance of everything.  
After only a few minutes they were bumped into again.  
“We should just go,” Relena said, leaning close to make herself heard. “This is much too crowded.”  
She was quiet the entire walk back to their hotel suite, and Trowa couldn’t tell if she was still upset about earlier or simply tired.  
“Your friends were… something,” he said once they were back in the room, feeling the need to say something to her.  
“What does that mean?” She asked.  
Trowa shrugged and took off his suit jacket.  
“You just grew up very differently than I did. I was never rebellious enough to… what was it Sarah did? Ride a horse naked at midnight on a dare?” Trowa smirked at her but Relena just stared at him.  
“What?”  
“I get it, Trowa. I get it.”  
“Get what?”  
“I’m not one of you. I’m not - I’m not like you or Duo or Quatre or Wufei or Heero. I know that. I know that I didn’t pilot a mobile suit, I didn’t win any battles but I - I’m not one of them either. I didn’t spend the war like they did. I had to hold my father while he died and then I had to walk away from the woman who murdered him - the woman who now controls far too much of my life - and I had to grow up and become a symbol for a cause that I wasn’t even allowed to fight for because it was far more important that I be a symbol than an actual person. I used to think - I used to think that you understood. No one has been through what you’ve been through, and no one has been through what I’ve been through and you used to be - I used to think we were friends, Trowa. I used to think there were five people in the world who knew what it was like to be a child without a family or a childhood. And you made it perfectly clear to me that night two years ago that you don’t think of me that way - I get it, Trowa. I’m not your friend. You don’t think I understand and you don’t think I’m good enough or broken enough or - or whatever I’m not enough of for you to care about me but I get it. I do not need the constant reminders from you that you think I’m just a civilian.”  
Before he could even respond, Relena walked into the bedroom and slammed the door closed.  
Leaving Trowa staring after her in complete confusion.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Valentine’s gift fic for Maevemauvaise. I have to also give a huge thanks to Amberlyinviolet for being super patient with some D/s questions from me as well as doing a great beta read. Any mistakes you see are my own and NOT her fault though.  
A/N #2: This fic is complete in five parts and I will be posting a chapter every day or as I get it edited. So you’re not going to be waiting months or years for updates on this. And yes, I’m working on updates for my WIPs.  
A/N #3: I cannot say enough how much reviews mean to me. It is so wonderful to hear encouragement to keep writing, to know that you enjoy something. I read every review and they mean the world to me. Please take a moment to let me know what you think of my work.

Warnings: D/s, BDSM, fluff, angst, violence, language, smutty smut smut (of the 2x5 variety only). Also cliches because… I really wanted to do some fun things. And a few Star Wars quotes because Star Wars.  
Pairings: 2X5, 3xR

True Romance  
Part 4

“Hey, Wufei? You okay in there?”  
Silence.  
Which wasn’t surprising. Silence was pretty much the only response Duo had gotten from Wufei since - since that night at his apartment.  
He had tried to respect Wufei’s request that he talk to him or look at him as little as possible during the mission. It had been surprisingly easy - Wufei had made himself scarce all day while Duo went out to meet Sally’s contact, Bolton, and get their formal invitation to the party that night.  
His meeting with Bolton had been surreal in its normalcy. Duo wasn’t sure why he had expected Bolton to look like someone worthy of the title of Dungeon Master, but he had turned out to be a middle aged bald man who looked, if anything, a little too much like Father Maxwell for Duo to be entirely comfortable around him. Bolton had made small talk about Sally, had asked about Duo’s pet and it had taken Duo a moment to realize he meant Wufei.   
By the time he returned to their hotel room to get dressed for the party a few hours later, Duo and Wufei had gone almost thirty-six hours without saying a word directly to each other.  
It was killing Duo. It was like being trapped in an airless coffin with the other man all over again - but this time Duo felt confident there would be no last minute escape.  
He had done something to Wufei, had hurt him in some way that Duo knew he would never be able to repair. It hadn’t been physical - he had kept a keen eye on Wufei and he didn’t even appear sore from the flogging - it had been psychological and it had been deep.   
Duo felt dirty, felt a level of self-loathing he hadn’t experienced in years and he needed this mission to be over as soon as possible so he could give Wufei the space he so clearly needed.  
Duo had already typed up his reassignment request - the L2 division desk had been empty for months now and even if it was a demotion it was still a position Duo could transfer to - all he needed to do was send it in to Une with the mission debrief after they apprehended Lady Carmen.  
If they apprehended her.  
Duo felt immense trepidation for the party, for the plan at all, now. He had serious doubts that Wufei, as amazing as his self-control was at times, would be able to go through with this.  
Doubts that were only exacerbated by the fact that Wufei had been in the bathroom for an hour now and wasn’t opening the door.  
“Wufei?” Duo tried once last time.   
When there was still no answer on the other side, Duo sighed and pulled out his lock pick.   
It was the work of only a few seconds before he managed to get the door open.  
He immediately regretted it  
Wufei was seated on the floor of the bathroom meditating. His hair was loose, still slightly damp from the shower Duo had heard him take earlier, and he wore the white linen pants in the traditional style that Duo knew Wufei favored when not in uniform.  
“Shit. I’m so sorry -” Duo started to leave, but Wufei opened his eyes and stared at him. “You weren’t answering and I - I kind of panicked and -”  
Wufei scowled.  
“You thought what? That I had killed myself over the shame of having to perform like this?”  
The anger in Wufei’s voice cut through Duo.  
“I -”  
“I have suffered through worse, Maxwell. I am perfectly able to complete this mission.”  
Duo nodded. He knew there was nothing he could say to make this better.  
“Yeah. Um - we have to leave in fifteen minutes so just… I’ll be out here when you’re ready.”  
Duo closed the door and went back to the sitting area in the hotel room. He sat down on the loveseat that he had slept on last night, not bothering to ask Wufei for a blanket or pillow because Duo really, really felt like a night of horrible sleep would be easier to take than the look in Wufei’s eyes whenever he saw Duo.  
He wished that Wufei would talk to him, would tell him where it had gone so horribly wrong; but even if Wufei did confide in him, Duo knew he wouldn’t be able to fix this. He started to mentally catalogue what things in his apartment he would have to put in storage and what he could take with him to L2.  
Duo knew that even if Wufei had physically responded to some of the things that night, he looked at the experience as a horrific event and Duo wondered just what kind of sick person he was for treasuring the memory of Wufei begging him for release. It made it all so much worse, knowing that Wufei had hated the entire thing yet knowing that he, Duo, had enjoyed parts of it. He swallowed hard. He hadn’t enjoyed the frantic way Wufei had scrambled away from him, had refused to look at him, had cried when Duo touched him afterwards.  
Duo would never be able to get that mental image out of his head and he doubted he had any right to even try to exorcise it. He had broken this - he had broken something in Wufei and Duo shouldn’t even be surprised, considering his track record of fucking up literally everything good in his life.  
When Wufei emerged from the bathroom he had added a white Tang suit top to the pants but he had left his hair lose.   
Duo had never seen Wufei look more beautiful, and he had never felt more uneasy about admiring the other man as he did in that moment.  
“I’m ready,” Wufei said.  
Duo nodded and stood up.  
“Uh, there’s one more - Sally said you needed a collar so that people didn’t think you were just…”  
“Free?” Wufei quipped.  
Duo flushed.  
“Yeah. I guess.”  
“We didn’t get anything at the store,” Wufei said with a frown.  
“Yeah, I know but I went back the other day, before you came over actually. I was going to give it to you before you left that night but -”  
But Wufei had fled the scene before Duo could even properly apologize.  
Wufei sighed.  
“Let me have it.”  
He held out his hand.  
Duo pulled the collar out of the black bag with the rest of their equipment. He hadn’t quite known what to get for Wufei - there had been a huge assortment of collars, leather, chain, diamonds, but Duo had finally settled on a thin gold collar with a bell attached to the front of it. He had passed by any collars that included rings for leashes - he had known that Wufei would never allow him to lead him around in front of people like that - but his twisted sense of humor hadn’t been able to pass by the collar with the bell.  
Duo had chosen it because he had wanted to make Wufei smile, maybe roll his eyes a little, but as he handed Wufei the collar now the other man just stared at it grimly for a moment before putting it on.  
As if to further emphasize just how terrible a person was, Duo felt his heart skip a beat at the sight of Wufei in the collar.   
“We should go,” Wufei said, not bothering to even look at Duo before he walked out of the hotel room.  
Duo grabbed the bag and had to jog to catch up with Wufei.  
Duo’s trepidation had given way to full on foreboding by the time they reached Bolton’s penthouse suite.  
He caught Wufei’s arm.  
“We don’t have to do this,” he said.  
Wufei glared at him.  
“What are you talking about?”  
“I’m just - what if she’s not even here? I can’t put you through this again for nothing. Not when -”  
Wufei freed himself from Duo’s arm.  
“I told you before. I’ve been through worse. I can handle this. Can you?”  
“No,” Duo answered honestly. “I can’t. I - fuck’s sake Fei, whatever I did to you the other night - I can’t do that again. I can’t make this even worse than it already is. I can’t hurt you more.”  
“Then if will have been for nothing,” Wufei snapped. “You will have humiliated me for nothing, Maxwell.”  
Wufei’s glare was steady and Duo nodded.  
“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Wufei was right.  
Duo drew in a deep breath and finished the invitation out of his suit pocket before knocking on the door.  
Please don’t let this be how I die, he thought as the door opened.

-o-

Wufei’s knees were starting to protest his kneeling position.  
He had been sitting like this, at Duo’s feet like an obedient dog, for the last hour while they surveyed the party.  
Wufei wasn’t sure what he had expected based on Sally’s descriptions or the store he had Duo had visited, but whatever he had been expecting it hadn’t been this. Arrayed around the two story penthouse suite there were clusters of chairs or couches surrounding various apparatus that Wufei remembered from the store and from the few hours of research he had committed to this before going over to Duo’s apartment that night. Groups of people were seated in each cluster, either talking quietly amongst themselves or watching various scenes utilizing the apparatus nearest them.  
Wufei had somehow expected the place to be dark, the people to look and act like criminals and delinquents.  
Instead, the penthouse was well, if softly lit, and everyone wearing clothes looked as though they would fit in with the rich and famous staying at the Achelois. Even the ...companions, Wufei had a hard time thinking of them as slaves, even in his own mind, were disturbingly ordinary if he ignored their varying states of nudity and fetish wear. He was confident that if he had first encountered any of these people outside of this room he never would have even guessed they were interested in this.  
He and Duo had walked around the perimeter of the penthouse before Duo sat down on a couch overlooking most of the area but without any apparatus set up nearby. It was an excellent observation point and even Wufei, kneeling down beside him and forced to look around with lowered eyes, was able to scan the penthouse for signs of Lady Carmen.  
They had scant information to go on - a vague physical description that was meaningless unless she was close enough for Duo to see the color of her eyes and ascertain whether or not she had a gap in her front teeth, a list of her favorite types of toys and scenes, and a description of the type of submissive she preferred.  
One of Bolton’s submissives came by and offered them something to drink, which Duo waved aside, and a small silver tray of ice chips, which Duo accepted and placed on the couch beside him.  
Wufei found himself eyeing the tray warily.  
“We need to do something, Fei,” Duo muttered. “I’ve been looking around and everyone else has either actively participated in a scene or sat and watched. There’s a woman at your seven who keeps looking this way. She might be our target. Can I - can I use the ice to see if we can get her to come over?”  
Wufei drew in a deep breath and steeled himself.  
“Yes.”  
“I’m sorry,” Duo said as he picked up an ice chip. “I’m sorry, Fei.”  
Duo traced the ice chip over Wufei’s lips and then across his jaw, down his throat and outlined his clavicle.  
Wufei shuddered. It felt good. It felt too good and he couldn’t seem to convince his body that he shouldn’t be enjoying this. The very act of kneeling beside Duo and accepting his attention this way - accepting the affections of the man he had wanted for years but who was now only pretending - had Wufei so tense he knew it had to be visible.  
“Relax,” Duo crooned. “Close your eyes, Fei. Think about your breathing. Just - just focus on the sensations and forget about everything else. Forget about me. Imagine I’m someone you want, someone you’re attracted to. Imagine someone worshipping your body the way it should be, Fei.”  
Wufei swallowed hard, aroused by Duo’s actions and his words.   
He shifted his weight and he felt his erection, trapped in the mesh briefs, brush against his thigh. The slight friction felt good but he refrained from doing it again as he thought just how humiliating it had been to orgasm the last time had had Duo touching him.  
“May I join you?”  
Wufei opened his eyes and found himself looking at a pair of red stiletto heels and long, brown legs.  
“Please. I’m Max and this is my Fai.”  
“A pleasure to meet you.” Wufei saw the woman and Duo shake hands before Duo sat back down and rested his hand on the back of Wufei’s neck.  
Wufei bowed low, as Sally had instructed him to do when greeting a Dominant.  
“I’m known as Lady Carmen,” the woman continued and Wufei felt Duo’s fingers tug on his hair ever so slightly when he sat back up. “I couldn’t help but notice that you haven’t been playing with your beautiful pet very much.”  
“Ah, well… I promised my dragon a chance to use the saltire cross,” Duo said, “and it’s been occupied most of the night. We’ve been content to sit back and watch until we can have a turn.”  
“Hm. That’s too bad for the rest of us - I’m dying to see what you can do to him.”  
Duo stroked his fingers through Wufei’s hair.  
“He’s something else, isn’t he?” Duo murmured.  
Wufei felt himself flush. He wasn’t sure if he was his embarrassment at being discussed as some kind of possession or if it was his reaction to Duo’s tone of voice.  
“Have you known Master Bolton for very long?” Carmen asked. “I haven’t seen you at one of his gatherings before.”  
“We were referred by a friend, actually. This is our first… event with him.”  
“How lucky for me that I was able to be here then,” Carmen said. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen anything new and your little pet there looks barely housebroken.”  
Duo’s grip on Wufei’s hair tightened reflexively, a clear warning not to take umbrage at Carmen’s words.  
“Oh, look - the saltire is available. Shall we before someone else comes along?”  
Carmen stood up and Duo, after a slight moment of hesitation, stood as well. Wufei waited until Duo had picked up the black bag before rising to his feet as well and following them.  
He used the opportunity to try to stretch as he walked. He didn’t understand how anyone found it even remotely tolerable to kneel like that for so long.  
Duo stopped in front of the saltire and Wufei felt his pulse start to race again. This was it, the real test - the real, ultimate humiliation. Duo was about to cuff him to this thing and flog him in front of a room full of strangers, at least one of whom was a pirate and murderer.   
Duo put his hand on the small of Wufei’s back and gently pushed him towards the saltire.  
“You’re going to be okay,” Duo whispered into his ear. “It’s going to be okay, Wufei. It’s going to be okay.”  
Wufei swallowed hard and stepped up to the cross. He stood still while Duo spread his limbs and cuffed them to the arms of the saltire.  
“Just remember the safe-words, Fei. Don’t let me - don’t let me hurt you, please.” Duo spoke softly, his lips pressed against Wufei’s ear.  
The saltire was made in such a way that only Wufei’s upper torso was against the cross, with his face and groin left exposed for everyone else to see.  
He sucked in a breath at the sound of Duo unzipping the bag and he closed his eyes.  
Wufei expected to feel the tails of the flogger on his skin, but instead he felt Duo’s hand, firm yet gentle, smoothing across his shoulders and back, down to his ass and his thighs and back up again.  
Wufei tried to regulate his breathing, tried very desperately to quell any thoughts of arousal that Duo’s touch evoked. He reminded himself that he had an audience. He reminded himself that he was about to be completely degraded in front of strangers.   
The reminders did very little to stifle his erection. If anything, Wufei felt a spike of adrenaline course through his body.  
Duo’s hand moved up to Wufei’s hair, tangling his fingers loosely into it, and a moment later Wufei felt the soft touch of the flogger trail down his spine.  
The first blow took him by surprise and Wufei jerked against his restraints. He felt Duo’s fingers massage his scalp, trying to soothe him.   
“Breathe,” Duo said, the words loud enough for other to hear them. “Breathe.”  
Wufei did as instructed, sucking in a gulp of air before releasing it and then forcing himself to breathe evenly, deeply. In. Out. In. Out.  
The flogger hit again, across the tops of his thighs, and Wufei rocked forward. He felt his skin tingle, felt his pulse race as Duo hit him again.   
Wufei focused on his breathing, focused on the pressure of Duo’s fingers against his scalp, focused on the feel of the cuffs against his wrists and ankles. He tried to separate each sensation, tried to feel the impact of each tail of the flogger when Duo hit him again.  
He groaned and felt Duo’s fingers tighten, felt Duo’s boy momentarily still as he pulled back to land another blow.   
It took another two blows for Wufei to find himself back in that strange state he had experienced before. But when he felt it, or rather when he ceased to be capable of cataloguing the individual sensations from the beating, he felt a rush of euphoric relief. He felt his body relax, felt his mind slow, felt his anger and his fear and his pain drift to the side of his focus. It was an incredible feeling, one that continued through the next several minutes as Duo continued to hit him with the flogger.  
The sting of the flogger felt distant, the sound of his own groans felt faint and almost like an echo, even his blood felt sluggish as it moved through his body. His cock and balls felt heavy, trapped inside the briefs, a pendulum that propelled his body forward with each blow.   
He felt Duo’s hands on him again - one still tangled in his hair but now the other, instead of holding the flogger, was stroking his flesh again, short nails grazing over Wufei’s chest and abdomen.   
Duo kissed the side of his face, lips pressed against Wufei’s jawline just below his ear, before he dragged his mouth down to Wufei’s pulse point and bit down.  
Wufei gasped at the sheer intensity of the action. It broke through the haze he seemed to float in, almost like a lightening bolt.  
Duo moved his hands across Wufei’s chest again, pinching and twisting his nipples until Wufei was arching forward and making sounds that he hadn’t even known he was capable of.  
Duo’s mouth, meanwhile, pressed open kisses across his shoulders and neck, biting down every so often.  
Wufei felt each sensation with increasing intensity, the pleasure from Duo’s touch and the throbbing pulse of pain from the beating, until Duo reached into Wufei’s briefs and stroked his cock.  
Wufei let his head fall back, felt Duo’s hot breath against the side of his neck.  
Duo used the hand in Wufei’s hair to turn his head and he kissed him on the mouth, firm brush of his lips that had Wufei pressing back, desperate for more.  
When he came Duo swallowed his cry of release, lips gentle against Wufei’s own, his grip on Wufei’s hair tender.  
After a moment, Duo pulled away from the kiss. He ran his free hand down Wufei’s back while he pulled the other from Wufei’s briefs and he felt the smear of his own semen against his belly.  
Duo tugged the cuffs free and Wufei staggered away from the saltire, blinking his eyes open slowly.  
He tried to step back, but Duo was there, one hand around his waist.  
“Let me hold you,” Duo said softly. “Don’t leave me again.”  
Maybe it was Duo’s tone, maybe it was the increased circulation to his limbs, maybe it was the sudden reminder that they were in a room full of people who had just witnessed something that Wufei struggled to even define, but he felt a staggering weight hit him.  
He stared at Duo and he tried, very hard, to fight his urge to flee. He fought against the panic that was slowly building in his chest.  
Duo must have seen something, because he simply picked Wufei up and carried him through the crowd and back to the corner of the room they had previously occupied.   
Duo sat on the couch, pulling Wufei onto his lap and wrapping his hands around Wufei’s body.  
“I’m here. You’re okay, Fei. You’re okay. You - you were amazing, Fei. I can’t believe how incredible you are and you’re okay. Everything is fine Wufei. Everything is right. You did everything right.” Duo rubbed his palms over Wufei’s arms.  
He tried to concentrate on that, on Duo’s words, and not the panic.  
“It was good, Fei. You were good. So good,” Duo continued. “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful, more perfect than you, Fei.” Duo pressed a kiss to Wufei’s jaw and moved one hand up to Wufei’s hair and began to stroke it.  
Wufei couldn’t remember the last time someone had done that. Most of his lovers ignored his hair aside from the odd tug. No one had taken the time to soothe him like this since his very early childhood.  
“Oh, Fei. Thank you. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for that gift, Fei. I can’t believe how strong you are. You’re okay. It’s over now. It’s all over and you were - you were unforgettable, Fei.”  
Duo pulled him close and Wufei allowed his body to relax, allowed himself to let go of the panic, to ignore the sting of tears in his eyes, to forget anything that wasn’t the feel of Duo’s body against his own.  
He closed his eyes and he breathed.

-o-

“That was certainly worth the wait.”  
At least half an hour had passed, and while Wufei was still in Duo’s lap, he seemed calmer, more in control of himself again, and at the sound of Lady Carmen’s voice Duo felt Wufei stiffen in his arms.  
Not long after sitting down with Wufei, one of Bolton’s subs had come over with a blanket and glass of water. Duo was incredibly grateful for the blanket now since covered both Wufei’s reaction and Duo’s own as he tightened his grip on Wufei.  
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Duo said as evenly as he could.  
Carmen sat down on the other side of the couch.  
“Tell me, is your pet available for play?”  
It took Duo a moment to figure out what Carmen was asking.  
“It’s up to him, but even if he is interested I would have to be present,” Duo said.  
Carmen nodded.  
“Of course, I wouldn’t dream of having it any other way.” She looked over at Wufei. “Well, little pet? How would you like to play with me sometime.”  
Wufei inclined his head and Carmen smirked.  
“Wonderful! How long will you two be staying at the Achelois?”  
“Only a few more days. I’m not sure Fai would be ready for -”  
“Oh no, of course not. But I would love to have dinner with the two of you and we can discuss future possibilities.”  
Duo nodded. That sounded safer, sounded like an opportunity for them to even take her into custody.  
“Tomorrow? We don’t have plans,” Duo offered.  
Carmen made a regretful noise.  
“No, I’m afraid I have a business meeting tomorrow evening. I have the chance to acquire a rather rare commodity and I simply can’t pass up the opportunity.”  
Duo shrugged.  
“The day after then?”  
“Perfect. Let’s meet at the Endymion at eight?” Carmen suggested one of the restaurants at the resort.  
“We’ll see you then,” Duo assured her.  
“Good. I’ll leave you two in peace,” Carmen said before doing just that.  
“We got her, Fei. We got her.” Duo pressed a kiss to Wufei’s head without thinking about it.  
He felt Wufei’s entire body freeze.  
“Fei -”  
“We can leave now,” Wufei said, his voice brusque.  
He rose from Duo’s lap far more gracefully than Duo could have ever managed if their positions were reversed.  
Duo watched him fold the blanket and set it aside.  
He stood up.  
“Fei -”  
“Stop talking,” Wufei growled.  
They made their way to the front of the penthouse, where Duo waited while Wufei changed back into his street clothes.  
Bolton came over and Duo shook his hand.  
“Thank you again for allowing us to come,” Duo said to him.  
“Oh it was entirely my pleasure. Your pet was quite a treat for all of us.”  
Duo nodded even as he felt himself blush.   
“Yeah, he’s… he’s something.”  
“Please leave your contact information in the guestbook so that I can invite you to future gatherings,” Bolton said as Wufei came back to Duo’s side.  
“Yeah, yeah of course.”  
Duo ignored Wufei’s glare while he filled out the guest book with the contact info for Max Brown.  
The walk back to their hotel room was tense and silent and Duo found himself dreading stepping into the room.  
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Wufei snapped as soon as Duo closed the door.  
He leaned his head against the door and drew in a deep breath.  
Duo reminded himself that he deserved this - whatever Wufei wanted to say or do, Duo deserved it and probably worse.  
“What do you mean?” he asked as he turned around.  
“You kissed me.”  
Duo stared at him.   
“Yeah, you didn’t say not to - I thought - it’s because I kissed you on the lips. I shouldn’t have. I - it just felt right at the time but that’s not - I’m sorry. I never should have -”  
“I’m not talking about during the scene I’m talking about just now - after you arranged the meeting with Carmen.”  
“Oh.”   
For that Duo had no excuse.  
“Is there a reason you want to continue torturing me?” Wufei demanded.  
“I - I didn’t realize it was torture,” Duo said. He felt as if Wufei had physically hit him. Just the feel of his lips was torture to him?  
Duo swallowed hard. It didn’t matter how much that realization hurt, it didn’t matter just how completely that crushed Duo’s fantasies of Wufei seeing him as anything more than a friend. Duo had already crushed those anyway, had already ruined everything that night at his apartment.  
“Look, it’s over now Wufei. I won’t - I won’t ever do it again. I promise. And I know telling you I’m sorry isn’t going to make this better, I know that I’m never going to be able to fix this but I - fuck, Wufei. I’m sorry.”  
He saw Wufei’s throat work as he swallowed.   
They stood there is silence, Wufei glaring at the wall behind Duo and Duo staring at Wufei’s face, hoping he would just look at him.  
“I’m going to prepare a bath for you,” Duo decided.  
That got Wufei’s attention.  
He turned on Duo with a fierce glare.  
“I don’t need you to prepare a bath for me! I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself. I don’t need you to -”  
“I need it!” Duo interrupted him, nearly shouting. “I need to do something. Just - I don’t care if you just let it drain back out. Let me do something.”  
Wufei said nothing, so Duo walked past him and into the bathroom.  
The tub was huge, the kind of spa tub that Duo had never seen in space, only on Earth. It took a while to fill, and Duo sat beside the tub as the the bathroom slowly filled with steam and he tried to think of how the fuck he had ruined everything so spectacularly.  
Wufei walked into the bathroom, completely naked, and Duo had to jerk his gaze away and look at the abstract painting of the lunar landscape on the wall.  
“It’s nothing you haven’t seen or felt by now,” Wufei sneered.  
Duo nodded in agreement to that, but Wufei’s tone, his obvious loathing and his resentment, cut into Duo. He continued to stare at the painting.  
Wufei sat down in the tub and Duo stood up to leave.  
“Don’t.”  
Duo turned his head to look at Wufei.  
Wufei had his eyes closed, his arms wrapped around his knees and his position allowed Duo to see the welts along Wufei’s back from the flogger.   
Duo stared at the sight and he felt equally revolted with himself and aroused.   
“I’m sorry,” he said again.  
“I have never felt so humiliated. Not even when - I have never felt so exposed.”  
“I’m going to transfer. You never have to see me again after this mission, Fei. I - “  
Wufei opened his eyes and glared at him.  
“You don’t understand anything, Maxwell. I enjoyed it. I wanted you to humiliate me. I wanted you to hurt me. I wanted you to use my body. I wanted to be… I wanted to be yours.”  
Duo heard the words, he saw the look on Wufei’s face, but he had no idea where this was going.   
“That night -”  
“I hate myself for wanting these things,” Wufei continued, almost as if Duo hadn’t spoken. “I cannot believe how unbelievably weak I am for -”  
“Are you joking? You’re not weak Wufei! You’re the strongest, most intense person I’ve ever met. Hell - you’re the only one of us who can beat Heero’s PT course times!”  
“This has nothing to do with my body, Maxwell.”  
“I know it’s not - you don’t beat Heero because of your body. You beat him because you’re a stubborn bastard. Wufei, you are not weak. Think of everything that you’ve survived - do you really think you could have done any of that if you were weak?”  
Wufei looked away from him.  
“Fei, please don’t hate yourself for the things I did to you. I - I already hate myself for putting you through this. You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. I told you before, you’re perfect.”  
“You said you’d never seen anything so beautiful.”  
Duo snorted.  
“Well I’ve got eyes, don’t I? Seeing you come that night in my apartment was - but this?” Duo shook his head. “As much as I want to forget everything I did to you it’s going to be impossible to forget the look on your face when you came tonight, or the way your body felt when I held you or -”  
“Why are you doing this? Why are you saying these things to me?” Wufei demanded.  
“I - hell I guess I’m a glutton for punishment,” Duo muttered. “I don’t know. I just - there’s no point in lying to you. Tonight might be the best and worst thing that I’ve ever experienced and I just… I’m trying to sort through the fact that I’ve done something horrible to you with the way it made me feel to do those things to you.”  
“It wasn’t horrible.”  
“You said it was torture.”  
Wufei glared at him.  
“You kissing me was torture, Maxwell. You -”  
“Yeah, I get it. Me. I know that I’m the problem here. If I had been someone else - someone you wanted then, hell, I don’t know, maybe all of this would have turned out better.”  
Wufei stared at him.  
“What?”  
“Are you a complete idiot?”  
“I -no?”  
“You think I don’t want you? After tonight? After that night in your apartment? You think you aren’t someone I want?”  
Duo sneered.  
“Come on, Fei. I’ve seen the guys you date. They’re like you - handsome, intellectual. You don’t want me.”  
“You are handsome.”  
Duo gestured towards his body.  
“You’ve seen me naked, Wufei. I’m not - I’m no one’s fantasy.”  
“You’ve been my fantasy since we were fifteen.”  
Duo stared at him.   
“Fei -”  
“Even when I didn’t like you I wanted you,” Wufei continued.  
Duo realized that he had fucked this up even more than he had initially thought.  
“I’ve ruined everything, huh?” Duo shook his head. “All this time I actually - I might have had a chance with you until I did this?”  
Wufei held his gaze.  
“I already told you that I wanted you to do those things to me. That I want you to use my body.”  
“But you hate that you want it.”  
Wufei nodded.  
“That’s why you left my apartment that night? Not because I did something wrong -”  
“Because it felt too right,” Wufei finished for him.  
“Fei.”  
Duo reached out his hand and traced his fingers over Wufei’s mouth. Wufei leaned into the touch and Duo felt his heart beat erratically.  
“We should probably get some ice on your back,” Duo said.   
He had no idea what to do next and no idea what to say. Icing Wufei’s back was literally the only thing he could think of doing.  
“Hand me a towel?” Wufei asked.  
Duo got up and passed one of the towels to Wufei. He watched the other man dry off, wondering if he should, or if he should look away.   
“Ice?” Wufei prompted Duo when he had finished.  
“Right. Yeah.”  
Blushing and feeling like an idiot, Duo went went into the sitting area of the room and grabbed the ice bucket on top of the mini-fridge.  
“I’ll uh, I’ll be right back.”  
He found an ice machine and filled the bucket up before returning to their room.  
During his absence Wufei had pulled back the comforter on the bed and laid down, still naked, on his stomach.  
Duo grabbed a towel from the bathroom and wrapped up the ice in it before laying it on Wufei’s back, trying to cover as much of his back, ass and thighs as he could.  
“Does that feel okay?” he asked.  
“It’s fine,” Wufei said, his words a mumble against the sheets.  
Duo sat down on the floor beside the bed, still holding the ice bucket.  
He felt all of the tension he had been carrying around for days now slowly leave his body. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. The mission from hell was looking like it might actually be a success now.  
“All we have to do is grab Carmen at the restaurant and we’re done,” he said aloud.  
“And then you’re transferring.”  
Duo turned his head and saw that Wufei was looking at him, his dark eyes impossible to read.  
“I, ah. I figured you didn’t - I - if you want me to yeah. Yeah I’ll transfer.”  
“Where? Where would you transfer to?”  
“Uh the L2 Division Desk has been open for a few months now. I’m sure Une would -”  
“That’s a huge demotion for you.”  
“Yeah, well…”  
“Une would never let you go.”  
“Maybe if I tried to still coordinate the intel for your missions at the same time. She might. I think she will. She’d rather move me there then have me just resign.”  
Wufei was silent.  
“Do you - do you want me to transfer?” Duo asked, hating how anxious he was to hear Wufei’s answer.  
“I don’t know,” Wufei said honestly.  
Duo nodded.  
“I broke this. I - I ruined our friendship and any chance I might have ever had with you for something more. But you - Fei, I feel like I’ve broken you somehow.”  
“Maybe you have,” Wufei agreed.   
Duo turned so that he was kneeling beside the bed and could look more fully at Wufei.  
“But you aren’t weak, Fei. No matter what I did to you - you aren’t weak. I… I can understand hating that you want someone to humiliate you. I get it. I wouldn’t want anyone to do that to me and I don’t know how I would feel about them or it or -”  
“You don’t understand, Maxwell. You have no idea what this is like, what you’ve done to me.”  
“I - I know. I don’t know what I can do to make this right, Fei. I’ll transfer, okay? I will but even -”  
“Get the bag.”  
“What?”  
“Get the bag. With the equipment.”  
“Fei -”  
“Get the bag, Maxwell.”  
There was an expression of determination on Wufei’s face that made Duo nod and scramble up.  
He fetched the bag from the living room and brought it into the bedroom.  
Wufei sat up in the bed and held out his hand.  
Duo passed him the bag.  
“What are you -”  
“Take off your clothes.”  
Duo stared at him in shock as Wufei pulled out spreader bar that they had only purchased to use as filler for the bag so it appeared that they were experienced enthusiasts. The bar was designed to be attached to the sub’s ankles but also had wrist restraints positioned between the ankle restraints so that the person would be forced to huddle over, knees bent and spread, hands trapped beneath their body.  
“What are you -”  
“I want to show you just what this feels like, Maxwell. I’m not going to hit you with anything because I haven’t practiced and I don’t want to hurt you, not like that.”  
“Then what are you going to do?”  
Wufei glanced at the towel-wrapped ice.  
“Oh.”  
“Take off your clothes,” Wufei repeated.  
Duo didn’t want to. Hell, he wanted to do anything but this. He almost wanted to tell Wufei to just use one of the floggers or the cane or something and just beat the hell out of him. But stripping down in front of Wufei in this situation?  
Duo wasn’t exactly ashamed of his body. It had seen him through a hell of a lot, but unfortunately it bore testament to just how much he had had to survive.   
Wufei’s gaze was unrelenting.  
Duo drew in a deep breath and kicked off his shoes.  
Wufei arched an eyebrow, something like amusement flickering across his face and Duo bent down and removed his socks as well.  
Next he took off the tie, vest and dress shirt, leaving on his undershirt while he removed his trousers.  
Standing before Wufei in just his briefs and undershirt Duo felt the chill air of the hotel room and he swallowed hard.  
As embarrassed as he was, as much as he absolutely did not want to see Wufei’s lips curl with disgust or see him glance away from all of the scars, Duo owed the other man this. And he deserved whatever cruelty Wufei had planned for him.  
Duo pulled off his shirt and stepped out of his briefs. He resisted the urge to cover himself and forced his hands to his sides.  
Wufei got up from the bed, his eyes focused on Duo’s face only, and gestured for him to take his spot on the bed.  
“Kneel down and put your hands between your legs,” Wufei instructed.  
Duo did so, wondering just how stupid he looked, wondering just how many scars Wufei could see, wondering just how the fuck this was going to make things better.  
But maybe that wasn’t Wufei’s intention? Maybe he didn’t want to make them better - maybe he just wanted to make them even.  
Well, fair is fair, Duo reminded himself. And he had done a hell of a lot to earn this.  
He felt Wufei put the restraints on first his ankles and then his wrists.  
“Too tight?” Wufei asked.  
“No,” Duo said, his voice muffled by the sheets.  
He felt a thread of panic work its way through his body. He didn’t like restraints. He had had more than a few experiences in his lifetime of being manacled only to have very bad things happen to him while he was unable to protect himself.  
He felt the bed shift as Wufei got back on it and he closed his eyes as he felt the brush of Wufei’s flaccid cock as the other man reached across Duo’s back to grab the ice.  
“I’m not going to start with the ice,” Wufei said. “Just my hands.”  
Duo nodded.  
“Yeah. I - fuck, Wufei. Are you sure this is going to -”  
“You remember the safewords?” Wufei interrupted him in a voice that Duo recognized from past arguments as being one that meant Wufei would be getting his way in this or there would be hell to pay.  
“Yeah,” Duo croaked. He hoped to hell he didn’t butcher the pronunciation.  
Ting. Bu zai. He reminded himself.  
He tugged at the wrist restraints. They were solid. He wasn’t going to be able to get out of them unless Wufei let him out. He couldn’t even turn his wrist enough to even begin to try to mess with the straps securing him.  
The thread of panic intensified.  
He was completely trapped.   
Ting. Bu zai.   
His throat felt thick and tight and he was aware of tension in every muscle of his body. It felt like he was on a knife’s edge and he was a heartbeat away from opening his mouth, from shouting -  
And then Wufei touched him.  
It was light, it was no different than a thousand times before when Wufei had touched his shoulder in greeting or comfort. Except it was entirely different. Wufei was touching Duo’s skin, was running his fingers over the whorl of a burn scar from childhood. The scar stretched across his upper back, over his right shoulder and down his chest in a sweeping arc that Duo had always thought resembled a reaper’s scythe, eerily similar to the weapon his Gundam had been equipped with.  
Wufei had never touched that scar. No one had.  
The few men Duo had been intimate with in the past had tolerated his scars, had preferred sex with little or no lighting and Duo couldn’t blame them. The burn scars were only the start of it.  
Wufei’s fingers glanced lower, drawing lines from one bullet hole or shrapnel wound to the next until he came across the thick, jagged scar from the time Duo had almost died saving Trowa.  
Duo swallowed and he found himself holding his breath.  
What was Wufei thinking?  
The bed shifted again and then Duo felt the cool trickle of melting ice water on his spine.  
He sucked in a breath.  
Wufei pushed Duo’s braid of hair to the side, draping it across the sheets before he pressed the ice against the base of Duo’s neck.  
It felt like space.  
Like the chilly fingers of death reaching out to him and Duo shivered.  
He had done this to Wufei’s chest, had teased his nipples and his abdomen and he realized that in choosing to torture his back Wufei was, in fact, going easy on him. His back was nowhere near as sensitive as his front.  
But even so -   
Even so the progress of the ice down the length of his spine unsettled his breathing.  
He was fine though, able to just squeeze his eyes tight and just breathe, just force himself to think of the way the sheets felt against his cheek and the slight ache in his right shoulder from whipping Wufei earlier in the night. He was fine and he thought about space more, thought about the way it felt to be enveloped by all that darkness and how free it felt to be in space and he sure as hell wasn’t free right now, trapped by the spreader bar as he was, but the ice somehow helped, somehow made it easier for Duo to forget about being restrained.  
He was fine until he felt Wufei move the ice to his chest, felt him swirl it around his right nipple and then Duo was gasping.  
So much for Wufei going easy on him.  
Wufei gave his other nipple the same treatment and Duo tried to twist his body, not sure if he was trying for more or less contact, but Wufei reached out with his other hand and stilled Duo, his hand firm on Duo’s right hip.  
“Fei,” Duo said and it sounded like something between a cry and a sigh. He blushed at just how desperate he sounded.  
“Do you need to say something?” Wufei asked.  
“What?” Duo gasped.  
“Did you forget the safewords?”  
“No, no,” Duo tried to steady himself as Wufei trailed the ice down his belly.  
He felt his cock grow hard as Wufei’s hand got closer.  
Wufei’s hand stilled at the top of Duo’s pubic hair and then he reversed course, moving the ice back up Duo’s chest.  
Duo groaned.  
Wufei shifted his hand away from Duo’s hip and up to his chest. He pinched Duo’s right nipple, hard, and Duo cried out.  
He couldn’t believe that just moments ago he had been on the verge of a panic attack and now - now his body was arching forward as he searched for more contact with Wufei and Duo was making sounds that he had never even thought -  
“What do you like?” Wufei’s voice was calm, cold even.  
“Wha - what?”   
Duo twisted his face to look up at him, not understanding the question.  
“What do you like during sex?”  
Duo shook his head.  
“No. Don’t - you don’t have to do that, Fei.”  
Wufei arched an eyebrow.  
“Safewords?” He asked.  
“No. I don’t want you to - “  
“This isn’t about what you want, Maxwell. It’s about what I want. So tell me what I want to know or give me the safewords.”  
Duo swallowed hard. He should just say it. Just say ting and be done with this. He didn’t want Wufei to make him come - he didn’t want this memory, this feeling of being desperate and hopeless while Wufei touched him.  
But Wufei was right. This wasn’t about what he wanted. This was for Wufei. If Wufei wanted - if Wufei needed - to reduce Duo to this state then he had every right to.  
“Do whatever you want to me.”  
“Maxwell -”  
“It doesn’t matter what I like, Wufei. This isn’t for me. This is for you. Before - before I needed you to enjoy it, at least some part of it, so our cover wasn’t blown. This is different. Just - just do whatever you want to me.”  
He turned his face away from Wufei. He couldn’t look at him anymore, couldn’t take the anger in his narrowed eyes or the determined set to his jaw.  
“You used my own pleasure against me, Duo.”  
Duo swallowed and he nodded.  
“Yeah, yeah I did.”  
“Tell me what you like,” Wufei repeated. “You owe me that.”  
Duo felt the sharp prick of tears against his eyes. Fuck. This was beyond humiliating.  
He knew his face and chest were flushed, knew he was doing and saying things that he would never, ever have done in other circumstances and if it had been possible to just die from sheer embarrassment he might be on the verge of it.  
“I like to be touched,” he whispered. “Just… just touch me.”  
Wufei was silent and Duo didn’t know if he had even heard him. He sure as hell wasn’t going to repeat himself though.  
Wufei smoothed his palm over Duo’s chest, his touch confident and unhesitating even when it encountered Duo’s scars.  
“Like that?”  
“Yeah,” Duo choked out.  
He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, tried to cough, tried to do anything to dislodge the feeling of complete inadequacy that threatened to choke him.  
The bed shifted again and Duo felt Wufei’s body, felt his strong thighs against his side as Wufei leaned over Duo’s back.  
“What -”  
Wufei kissed him, pressed his lips against the burn on Duo’s back and held them there for a heartbeat, for two, for three.  
It wasn’t until Wufei shifted away again that Duo was able to breathe.  
“Bu zai, bu zai.”  
“No more of what?” Wufei asked.  
“Don’t kiss me. Don’t - I don’t deserve that. Don’t do that to yourself.”  
“No more kissing,” Wufei agreed after a tense moment.  
Duo wasn’t in the least surprised to discover that his erection had faded. Funny how guilt and terror did that.  
He was, however, furious with his body for being so quick to respond to Wufei’s touch.   
As the other man ran his hands down Duo’s chest to his thighs he curved his fingers slightly, dragging his nails across Duo’s flesh and Duo sucked in a breath.  
That felt good. Too good.  
Wufei repeated the gesture on Duo’s back before trailing one hand between the globes of Duo’s ass, fingers teasingly light.  
Duo felt his pulse grow erratic as Wufei’s fingers glanced over his balls, and then they wrapped around his semi-erect cock.  
Duo squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could while Wufei stroked him.  
Hadn’t he wanted this for years? Hadn’t he dreamed of Wufei doing this to him?  
And now that it was finally happening, Wufei was just doing it for revenge.  
Duo bit down on his lip as he felt himself approach orgasm.  
Wufei used his other hand to tug on Duo’s hair, digging his fingers into the top of Duo’s braid and curling them against his scalp.   
“God, Fei,” Duo moaned. He hadn’t had anyone touch his hair in years. It was the one thing that was off limits to his lovers by his choice.  
Wufei tugged on his hair, used it to turn Duo’s face.  
“I want to see you, Maxwell. Open your eyes.”  
Duo hesitated and Wufei tugged again.  
Duo snapped his eyes open at the same instant he felt himself come.  
He opened his mouth and bit down on the sheets in an effort not to shout. The sound was only barely muffled.  
Wufei held his gaze, dark eyes unflinching.  
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Duo breathed. “Please, Wufei. Please forgive me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m -”  
Wufei’s face transformed into an alarmed scowl.  
“Stop talking, Maxwell,” Wufei snapped.  
He moved, bending over to release Duo from the spreader bar.  
The moment Duo was free he rolled to the side, trying to get off the bed, but Wufei caught him.  
“Don’t.”  
“I get it. I - I understand now Fei. Please just -”  
He had no idea what he was even asking for anymore.  
Wufei pulled him close, wrapping his strong legs around Duo, trapping him yet again.  
“I forgive you,” Wufei said into Duo’s hair. “I forgive you, Maxwell if you will forgive me.”  
“I don’t deserve -”  
“I shouldn’t have done it,” Wufei said. “I know. You didn’t deserve that. You were just doing this for the mission. I did this for personal reasons and -”  
“I don’t deserve your forgiveness, Wufei,” Duo interrupted. “You had no choice when I did this to you. I forced you into it.”  
“Just like I did to you -”  
“No,” Duo shook his head. “You didn’t force me. You gave me a choice. You - Wufei you - no one has ever touched me like that.”  
He felt Wufei shake his head, felt his arms tighten around him.  
“Why are you such an idiot, Maxwell?”  
The question seemed rhetorical, or at least Duo hoped it was because at this moment in time he felt quite confident he could list off about a million reasons.  
“You are perfect, Duo. You are - you are the most extraordinary person I have ever met. How is that your lovers don’t look at you with awe? Don’t worship you?”  
Duo pulled away to glare at Wufei.  
“You don’t have to make fun of me. I know what I look like. I know what I -”  
“No, you don’t,” Wufei snapped.   
He pushed Duo back so that he was flat on the bed and straddled him.  
“Your body is a marvel, Duo. The things you’ve lived through.”  
Wufei ran his fingers over Duo’s scars.  
“The scars -”  
“The scars take away nothing from your perfection. You should have been broken so many times but you are impossibly strong.”  
Duo stared up at him.  
“I sure as hell don’t feel like it.”  
Wufei smirked slightly.  
“Why does this conversation sound familiar?”  
Duo closed his eyes and shook his head.  
“It’s not the same thing. You are perfect and strong and -”  
“And so are you. Or are you calling me an idiot?”  
“You certainly call me one often enough that I’d like the chance to do the same.”  
“Duo, look at me.”  
He opened his eyes and sighed.  
Wufei had a serious expression on his face, but for perhaps the first time in days, he didn’t look even the slightest bit angry.  
“I want to kiss you.”  
Duo shook his head.  
“Don’t,” he begged.  
“Your lovers don’t touch you apparently - you don’t even let them kiss you?”  
“They don’t - it’s just sex for them. For me. They don’t need to - there’s only so many times I can take seeing disgust on a guy’s face when I take him to my bed, Fei. Of course I kiss them and they kiss me. That’s - there’s nothing wrong with my face.”  
“Why won’t you let me kiss you then?”  
“Because I’ve dreamed of you kissing me for years and I don’t want it to happen just because I’m a pathetic, broken mess.”  
Wufei nodded.  
“Now you understand how I feel.”  
Wufei eased off of Duo, allowing him to wiggle free and sit up.  
They faced each other and Duo drew in a deep breath.  
“I’m sorry. If you - if I made you feel anything like this I am so fucking sorry.”  
“Do you want me to put in a transfer so you don’t have to see me again?” Wufei asked, one eyebrow arched.  
“What? Why - why in hell would I not want to see you again? You’re one of my best friends and I -oh. I see what you’re doing.”  
Wufei nodded.  
“Despite the complete mess we’ve made of everything, Duo, there’s something here for us.”  
Duo swallowed hard.  
“You mean - you mean you still want me? After everything?”  
“Not if it means you won’t allow me to kiss you.”  
His words shocked a laugh out of Duo and Wufei smirked.  
Duo wasn’t sure which one of them moved first, but when he felt Wufei’s hands against his skin again, felt the smooth press of his lips and the rough, wet heat of his tongue Duo was confident he had never felt anything so right, so perfect.  
“What do you think we should do?” Duo asked Wufei. He leaned his forehead against Wufei’s and he breathed in deeply, trying to convince himself this was really happening.  
“I think you should get a saltire for your apartment so that we can try that again.”


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Valentine’s gift fic for Maevemauvaise. I have to also give a huge thanks to Amberlyinviolet for being super patient with some D/s questions from me as well as doing a great beta read. Any mistakes you see are my own and NOT her fault though.  
A/N #2: Please take a moment to leave a review and let me know if you enjoyed this. Feedback is a precious thing and greatly appreciated.

Warnings: D/s, BDSM, fluff, angst, violence, language, smutty smut smut (of the 2x5 variety only). Also cliches because… I really wanted to do some fun things. And a few Star Wars quotes because Star Wars.  
Pairings: 2X5, 3xR

True Romance  
Part 5

The day of the wedding Relena woke up feeling like a repentant child.  
After her argument with Trowa that first night they had spent the next day in near silence. The fact that Relena had had no fewer than three conference calls and another another four sudden political crises to deal with helped, but only barely.  
She was keenly aware of Trowa’s silent presence in the background while she worked and when he called room service and made her eat after she had entirely forgotten about food. They had eaten in silence and Relena had been desperate for him to make a snide remark just so she could react, but he had remained quiet and Relena hadn’t known how to break the silence.  
It wasn’t that she felt wrong about the things she had said to him their first night. She had been too blunt, probably, but she had told the truth. Of course, she had been hoping that his reaction to her words wouldn’t be silence but instead some kind of apology or maybe even an admittance of affection from him. Something. Anything other than the silent treatment.  
Since the wedding wasn’t until that evening, Relena had agreed to meet up with Amy and Mark for a game of tennis that morning.  
She hadn’t played with friends in years, and as much as she wasn’t looking forward to more reminders of how perfectly ordinary and happy Amy and Mark were, she was desperate to get away from the no speaking zone that Trowa had instituted.  
It was just after nine in the morning when someone knocked on their hotel room door.  
Trowa arched an eyebrow at her over his book.  
“Expecting someone?” He asked.  
“Er, yes.”  
Relena hadn’t mentioned the tennis plans to Trowa.  
He set aside the book and got up to answer the door.  
A member of the hotel staff stood on the other side of the door holding a large gift bag.  
“For Ms. Darlian,” he said.  
“Thank you,” Trowa took the bag, tipped the man, and closed the door.  
Relena got up to take the bag from him but Trowa held up a hand to ward her off.  
“I need to look through it first.”  
“Of for the love of -”  
“Maybe you don’t mind the thought of being blown up first thing in the morning by a hidden explosive device but I don’t want to go out that way,” Trowa spoke over her.  
Relena huffed and crossed her arms.  
She had thought that Heero was overprotective. She had thought that Duo, who generally assumed that there was a potential assassin lurking in every shadow, was overprotective. They were nothing compared to Trowa.  
Relena found herself desperately wishing to have Wufei as her bodyguard again.   
Trowa very carefully opened the bag and lifted out several layers of tissue paper before holing up a white tennis dress.  
He arched an eyebrow at her.  
“Don’t tell me you want to critique my choice of clothing again?” She asked.  
“That depends. Where were you planning on wearing this?”  
She rolled her eyes.  
“Mark and Amy invited us to play tennis this morning. I didn’t think to pack anything for tennis so I had the pro shop send over a few things.”  
Trowa laid the dress aside and looked in the bag again.  
He pulled out a pair of rather large white tennis shoes.  
“I didn’t realize your feet were so big.”  
“Those are for you. I always pack running shoes with me and I can just wear those.”  
“You always pack -”  
“I like to be prepared.”  
Trowa gave her a look but just shrugged and reached into the bag again to pull out a white shirt and a pair of white shorts that were much, much shorter than they had looked in the catalog when she ordered them last night.  
Relena stared at them with wide eyes.  
“Those are a lot worse than I thought they would be.”  
Trowa dropped the shorts and glared at her.  
“What?”  
“Hm?” Relena flattened her lips together.  
“What do you mean they’re worse than you thought they would be? You knew they were going to be bad in the first place?”  
“Well the catalog didn’t have a photo with a model so the inseam length could have been misleading.”  
Trowa arched an eyebrow.  
“Is this because of what I said about your dress? Some kind of revenge?”  
“I don’t know where you get your delusions. I realize that they are shorter than your Preventers’ uniform trousers but honestly - your cover is to be a model.”  
Trowa opened his mouth, clearly about to say something cutting, but then he shook his head and picked up the shoes again.  
“How did you even know my shoe size?”  
“My assistant had it on file.”  
“Your - why would you have that on file?”  
“I have everyone’s information on file. For Christmas and birthday presents.”  
Trowa stared at her.  
“Anyway… I told them we would meet them at the courts at nine-thirty so we should probably get ready?”  
“What about rackets?”  
“Oh those are at the pro center - I didn’t see any reason to buy those so we’re only renting them.”  
Trowa shook his head and muttered something under his breath.  
“You don’t mind, do you?”  
Trowa glared at her.  
“Do I not mind the miniscule white shorts, the impromptu plans to go to a venue I haven’t had the chance to look over, or the fact that you didn’t buy me a tennis racket?”  
“Right. I’m going to get dressed while you sort through your feelings.”

 

-o-

“Oh you two look like you stepped out of a photoshoot!”  
Mark and Amy were already waiting for them at the court when Trowa and Relena walked out with their rackets and two containers of tennis balls.  
Relena offered her polite politicians smile that Trowa knew meant she was thinking horrible thoughts in her head.  
He smirked and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her tight to his side.  
“How do you know we didn’t?” He replied.  
Relena stiffened and tried to pull away but he held her close.  
If she was able to get away with stuffing him into this ridiculous costume he was at least going to make her feel as uncomfortable as he did.  
“Oh that’s right - your work!” Amy looked over his legs, eyes lingering much too long on his crotch, before she looked him in the eye and winked.  
Trowa didn’t even want to begin trying to figure out what that was supposed to convey.  
“Mark and I don’t get to play doubles very often - I’m so glad you were able to take some time out of your busy schedule and join us.”  
“Our pleasure,” Trowa said.  
“Say, why don’t Relena and I partner and Alex, you and Amy can partner? I’m sure we’d all like the chance to change things up!”  
There was no way in hell Trowa was going to allow himself to be on the opposite side of the court from Relena. If any threat presented itself it would take far too long to get to her.  
“What a great -”  
“Maybe some other time,” Trowa cut her off and gave her a look. “ It’s been ages since I’ve had the chance to play and I don’t want Amy to have to do all the work for me.”  
“Oh I wouldn’t mind!” Amy blushed. “I -”  
“No, no,” Relena shook her head. “Alex is right. He really is an awful tennis player - maybe the worst I’ve ever seen. It wouldn’t be at all fair to you.”  
Trowa glared at her and she just smiled back at him.  
Never again.  
“Well, shall we?” Mark asked and gestured towards the court.  
“You don’t have to try to make me miserable,” Relena hissed at him. “I’m sorry about the shorts.”  
“And I’m sorry that it’s my job to keep you alive,” Trowa hissed back. “ Maybe Heero would be able to take a bullet for you from across a tennis court but a mere mortal like me needs to be at your side to protect you.”  
“Oh.”  
She looked apologetic and Trowa sighed.  
“I’m not trying to make you miserable,” he added. “I - I didn’t realize how you felt about me before yesterday. I’m sorry you got stuck with me for the weekend.”  
Relena stared at him, and Trowa tried to figure out what she was thinking.  
“Come on you two! It’s Mark’s serve!”  
Relena turned away and Trowa sighed and prepared to showcase his awful, worst tennis player Relena had ever seen skills.  
It turned out to be quite a challenge.  
Not only was Relena actually very good at tennis, but her friends appeared to be genuinely awful.  
Trowa was grateful that he knew only the basics of the game, having suffered through Quatre trying to teach him how to play years ago, because he was confident that if he had even more than a passing familiarity with the game he and Relena would be destroying Mark and Amy.  
As it was, Trowa found himself having to stumble and trip as he tried to return their clumsy serves.  
Relena seemed to be having the time of her life, crushing serve after serve and returning volley’s with a ferocious expression on her face that reminded Trowa of the way she had dressed him down two nights ago.  
The recent history of the Earthsphere was littered with the corpses - literal and figurative - of people who had written Relena off as a pushover. Trowa hated the realization that he was among their number.  
He was so distracted thinking about her and just how little he had understood her before that he missed returning Amy’s next serve.  
“Nicely done babe!”  
Mark pulled Amy close and kissed her.  
Relena arched an eyebrow at Trowa.  
“I thought I was the worst player you had ever seen?” He muttered.  
“That’s because I forgot how terrible these two are,” she retorted.  
Trowa managed to return the next serve, hitting the ball towards Mark’s side of the court. The man dove to try to return it but missed.  
Trowa smirked at Relena and arched an eyebrow.  
“Great job sweetie!” She gave him a fake smile and a thumbs up.  
Trowa rolled his eyes.  
“We’re supposed to be dating, Relena.” He reminded her.  
Relena’s smile vanished. She narrowed her eyes but closed the space between them and kissed him, a quick, almost painfully hard press of her lips against his.  
“Aww! You two are just so adorable together!” Amy called out from across the court.  
Relena made a face as she stepped back.  
“Look out!”  
Trowa reacted without thought. He tackled Relena to the ground and threw his body on top of hers, shielding her and cradling her against him.  
He felt his heartbeat thundering in his ears as he looked around for the source of the threat.  
A tennis ball bounced past, chased after by a teenaged boy who looked at Trowa as though he were insane.  
No threat. Just a loose tennis ball.  
Trowa felt like an idiot.  
“Get off me,” Relena shoved at his chest and Trowa scrambled up.  
He offered her a hand and noticed that there was blood on her thigh.   
Idiot. Not only was there not a threat, but Trowa had actually hurt her.  
“I need to find a first aid kit for you,” Trowa said once Relena was back on her feet.  
“What? No I’m fine. Are you - Trowa are you okay?”  
He ignored her concerned look.  
“Sorry - I need to get this looked at,” he called out to Mark and Amy.  
They gave him puzzled looks.  
“We’ll have to take a raincheck on the game!” Relena added.  
She allowed Trowa to escort her back to their room, his hand on her arm the entire time, before finally pulling away from him once the door was closed behind them.  
“Are you -” she started to speak.  
“Don’t start with me. I’m sorry for ruining your fun but you’re injured and -”  
“Trowa. I’m fine.”  
“You’re bleeding, Relena. This isn’t about you trying to prove how tough you are or show me that you’re not a civilian - you need -”  
“It’s not my blood!”  
She wiped at her thigh, smearing the half-dried blood there and showing that there was no cut or abrasion under it.  
“Then what -”  
“Trowa, it’s your blood.”  
Relena gestured and he looked down to see that both of his knees where scraped.  
She smiled at him.  
“Here, let me clean you up.”  
“I don’t need -”  
“Oh shut up. Do you have a first aid kit?”  
Trowa searched through his travel bag and handed it to her.  
Relena took the kit and one hand and Trowa’s hand in the other. She dragged him into the bathroom and pushed him down into a sitting position on the edge of the bathtub.  
She knelt down in front of him and opened up the kit.  
Trowa had never felt like more of an idiot or a failure. This moment might be just as bad as that night two years ago.  
“And besides,” Relena said as she cleaned off his knees with an alcohol swab, “ it’s not as if I was having that much fun. Honestly I can’t believe Mark and Amy have the courage to ask anyone to play tennis with them considering how terrible they are.”  
“Maybe they thought you were even worse than them?”  
Relena glared up at him.  
“I happen to be an excellent tennis player.”  
“I didn’t say I thought you were worse than them.”  
Relena smirked and taped gauze over his knees. It seemed like overkill to Trowa. It also seemed like a sure way to remind him what an idiot he was every time he looked down at himself.  
“I suppose I should thank you for saving me.”  
Trowa arched an eyebrow at her.  
“From the tennis ball,” she clarified as she got to her feet and threw away the used supplies. “It’s a big scary world out there with danger at every corner. Us civilians just can’t seem to -”  
“I’m not treating you like a civilian. I am well aware of the fact that you are not a civilian.”  
She folder her arms across her chest, clearing wanting more of an apology than just that.  
Trowa stared at her for a long moment.  
“You’re right,” he said eventually. You aren’t one of us - you aren’t like Heero, Duo, Quatre Wufei and I. Your war wasn’t the same as ours. We had orders, we had a mission. But you didn’t have any of that. You had to figure everything out on your own and you had to figure out who was right and who was wrong and you had something you believed in - you’re willing to sacrifice your life just at the thought of saving other people. The rest of us? We aren’t like you. Heero has spent his entire life following orders. Quatre - Quatre only sees the best in everyone while Wufei only sees the worst and Duo and I shouldn’t be alive, we should have died in the gutter as children and everything we do, every day we stay alive, we’re fighting just for that - just to stay alive. You aren’t one of us. You don’t follow orders ever. You don’t see the best or the worst in people - you see people exactly as they are and you try to save them anyway.”  
“I… I don’t understand what you’re trying to say,” Relena admitted.  
“Two years ago you caught me on one of the worst nights of my life and I made a fool of myself. I cried and I - I almost threw up all over you.”  
“I was there, I remember it. Vividly. And you haven’t spoken to me, not really, ever since.”  
“Because what the hell am I supposed to say to you? Relena, Duo is your friend just as much as he is mine - he’s saved your life just as many times as he’s saved mine - and I couldn’t hold myself together.”  
“Is that what this is about? You’re embarrassed because you expressed emotion?”  
Trowa glared.  
“You’re the strongest person that I know, the most principled, the most passionate and even though you make a lot of terrible decisions you are also brilliant. I’m not embarrassed because I expressed emotion. I’m simply very aware of the distance between us.”  
“You… you think I’m too good to be your friend?” She realized.  
“You don’t need to waste your time on someone like me,” he confirmed. “Not that you have time to waste on anything or anyone.”  
“I don’t even get a say in who I can waste my time on now?” Relena asked. “First you try to tell me what I can wear, now you want to tell me who I can -”  
“Relena, it’s not a joke. I’m not someone you want in your life.”  
She rolled her eyes.  
“Trowa you’ve been there - you know what it’s been like. You’re one of a handful of people in the Earthsphere who knows me. Look at the people I went to school with - listen to what they talk about, what they think about. I’ve got them on one side of me and I have ancient, prejudiced diplomats on my other side telling me I’m too young and foolish to be any good at this. I’m trapped, Trowa, and almost no one can see that.”  
Trowa frowned.  
“I don’t understand you. I don’t understand why you don’t just walk away from it all.”  
“If I walk away, who will fill my place?”  
Trowa shook his head.  
“I wouldn’t even care, if I were you.”  
“That’s bullshit and you know it, Trowa. You can tell me you only care about surviving from one day to the next, but if that were true you wouldn’t be a Preventer - you wouldn’t have even fought in the wars. You risk your life, every day. You care.”  
Trowa sighed.  
“Maybe I do care, but I also know that in the grand scheme of things, nothing I do matters.”  
“Oh and I haven’t learned that lesson yet?”  
“I was going to say that you on the other hand, do everything that matters.”  
“Oh.”  
She bit her lip and looked at him as if she was just seeing him for the first time.  
“So you… don’t hate me.”  
“Maybe a little,” Trowa allowed. He tugged at the hem of his too short shorts. “You did force me to wear these.”  
Relena rolled her eyes.   
“Stop whining. You look amazing in them and you know it.”  
Trowa couldn’t help but notice the way she blushed as soon as she complimented him.  
“Princess are you attracted to me?” He teased.  
Her eyes narrowed.  
“I’m simply making an observation,” she bit out.  
“Hm.”  
“Don’t ‘hm’ me!”  
“Well just admit the truth.”  
She rolled her eyes again.  
“Fine. Yes. I find you attractive. Surely that isn’t an earth shattering revelation.”  
While Trowa was aware of how handsome he was, he hadn’t known that Relena found him attractive at all.  
“It’s at least significant enough to merit gravitational realignment.”  
“Oh please. You are so full of yourself!”  
Throwa shrugged and crossed his arms.  
“It’s not every day a simple colony boy like me finds out that the Queen of the World is in love with him. At least let me have a moment to enjoy this.”  
“I am not in love with you, you scruffy looking -”  
“You have a conference call with the L5 representative starting in half an hour. Do you want me to order lunch for us?”  
Relena glared at him, the look fierce enough to rival even Wufei’s worst.  
“Yes. Pease. Thank you.”  
Trowa smirked at her tone.  
“My pleasure, princess.”  
He caught the first aid kit that she threw at his head and made his escape.

-o-

Relena shifted in her seat beside Trowa, trying to see if the bride was finally ready to make her entrance and he arched an eyebrow at her.  
“Okay there?”  
“I hate weddings,” she muttered.  
“You - why do you hate weddings? How can you possibly hate an event where two people commit their lives to each other?”  
“Are you a closet romantic?”  
“I’m not in the closet about this,” Trowa argued. “What do you have against weddings?”  
“When I was younger, before the war, I was a flower girl in fourteen weddings.”  
Trowa stared at her with wide eyes and Relena nodded.  
“People wanted to get in good with my father, so they kept asking him if I wanted to be in the wedding and my mother loved to dress me up and show me off.”  
“So you’re scarred for life now.”  
Relena rolled her eyes.  
“I’m not scarred, I just… I think the ceremony is so boring and I just - if I ever get married I want it to be quiet, simple. No guests.”  
“That’s not surprising.”  
“Really? You didn’t think I’d want some huge society wedding?”  
Trowa shrugged.  
“You live your life in the public eye. Of course you’d rather keep your personal life private.”  
Relena looked at him and she couldn’t help but smile.  
“That’s it exactly.”  
Trowa smirked.  
“It’s too bad though. Puts a stop to my dreams of us flying in royalty and politicians from all over the Earthsphere when we get married on the beach and -”  
“The beach?”  
“I like the beach. It’s wet.”  
Relena couldn’t decide just how much of this was a joke to Trowa.  
Before she could find out, however, the wedding march started to play.  
“It’s about time,” she muttered as she turned to see the bride enter.  
Relena hadn’t been particularly close to Sandy or Diego in school, and had frankly been surprised to be invited to their wedding, until she realized that the invitation had very little to do with childhood friendship and everything to do with her political position. She knew that Sandy ran some sort off import business and likely having Relena at her wedding was something she would be able to brag about to her colleagues and potential trade partners.  
She watched Sandy walk down the aisle, her dark skin radiant next to her white wedding dress. She hoped the vows were short and traditional. Relena didn’t remember too much about Sandy from school, only that she had been very quiet, almost mousy.   
Just as Sandy reached the front of the aisle and took Diego’s hand there was a commotion at the back of the room.  
Relena turned and was shocked to see Duo and Wufei pushing past two attendants and forcing their way into the room.  
“What is going on?” She hissed at Trowa.  
He frowned and shook his head.  
“No idea.”  
Relena looked back at Duo and Wufei.  
They were scanning the room, eyes intense and body language practically screaming danger.  
“Sorry to interrupt, folks, but we have reason to believe that your lives are in danger.”  
Relena heard several people gasp. She felt Trowa grab her wrist and he shifted his body, clearly ready to react.  
Relena felt her heart beat faster.   
This was seriously happening now? She couldn’t even sit still and be bored at a wedding without something going wrong?  
“Just remain calm,” Wufei instructed. “And stay in your seats. We just need to -”  
“What the hell are you doing here?” Sandy shouted from the front of the room.  
Duo and Wufei’s jaws dropped as they looked first at the bride and then each other.  
“What are you doing here?” Duo demanded.  
Sandy gestured to her wedding gown.  
“I’m getting married. Quite obviously. Now how did you even get in here? You weren’t invited.”  
“No, ah, sorry about that.” Duo gave Wufei a look but the other man shrugged. “I’m ah, sorry to do this here but -”  
Duo saw them and jerked his head.  
Trowa was out of his seat and pushing Relena ahead of him and down the aisle before she could even protest.  
“Let me -”  
“We don’t have time to discuss this in a committee,” Trowa snapped.  
“I am not a committee!”  
They were at the back of the room by the time Duo continued speaking.  
“I’m going to have to take you into custody, Ms. - what’s your name?”  
“My name is Sandy Gaea and what exactly are you taking me into custody for? I didn’t break any laws last night although you -”  
“Okay, okay. Let’s just… keep some things private,” Duo said. “I’m arresting you in connection with your terrorist activities as Lady Carmen.”  
Relena stared with wide eyes and even Trowa stopped trying to get her out of the room.  
She had read about Carmen in intelligence briefings - the woman ran an organization that was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people.  
Apparently a few of the other guests had heard about her as well.  
There were more gasps and people started to get up.  
“Sit back down!” Wufei ordered. “Ms. Gaea please come with us.”  
Sandy glared at them but after a moment she kissed Diego, threw her bouquet at her flower girl, and stalked towards Duo and Wufei.  
Wufei secure her wrists with zip ties and they escorted her from the room.  
“Come on,” Trowa gestured for Relena to follow him out.  
Behind them it sounded like chaos erupted in the room as they remaining guests tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.  
When they got back to the hotel room Relena noticed the phone blinking with a message.  
She pressed the button to play it.  
“Hey, this is Duo. Damnit I thought I could catch you before you left. We think Lady Carmen is going to be at the wedding and she’s the threat against Relena. Last night we met her and she said something about a rare acquisition and we think she’s planning something. Damnit, damnit damnit. Fei and I are on our way.”  
Relena stared at Trowa when he started to laugh.  
“What - Trowa are you okay?”  
It took him a minute to regain control of himself.  
“Fine. I’m fine. It’s just,” he paused and drew in an uneven breath. “It’s just that the one person you went to school with who isn’t ordinary or mind numbingly boring is the leader of a terrorist ring trying to bring down your government.”  
Relena arched an eyebrow.  
“You have a strange sense of humor.”  
“Relena. What the hell kind of school produces Mary, Amy, Marie and then you two.”  
“I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment or an insult.”  
“I’m not either,” Trowa admitted. He shook his head.   
The hotel phone rang and Relena answered it.  
“Hey, it’s Duo. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”  
“We’re fine,” Relena assured him.  
“Great. Can I talk to Trowa?”  
Relena passed the phone over to him and sat down.  
When Trowa hung up the phone he looked over at her.  
“I’m sorry your vacation was ruined.”  
Relena took off her heals and sighed.  
“I don’t really have much to compare it to. Maybe everyone’s vacations are like this.”  
Trowa snorted.  
“What did Duo have to say?”  
“He wanted to remind me that there was still a chance someone might try to hurt you and to keep my guard up until we leave tomorrow.”  
Relena nodded. She knew it would be unrealistic for Duo to have said anything else. Of course she was still in danger. She was in danger all of the time.  
“What?” Trowa asked, looking at her closely.  
“Oh, nothing. I understand. I just… I just sometimes wish I could be ordinary and mind numbingly boring sometimes.”  
“No you don’t.”  
“Maybe not,” she agreed, “but at least I’d like to be able to live my life without the constant threat of being kidnapped or assassinated. I just - I just want something normal to happen to me sometimes.”  
Trowa looked thoughtful.  
“Do you want to get drunk and tell me about the time you rode a horse naked at midnight again?”  
“That wasn’t me!” Relena yelled. “That was Marie and Amy!”  
“Hm. If you say so.”  
Relena glared at him and he smirked.  
“Or,” he said, “we could just get out of here.”  
“What do you mean?”  
Trowa shrugged.  
“You want to do something normal? We could go get some cheap food and go see a crappy movie. Something the Queen of the World would never do.”  
Relena rolled her eyes.  
“You’re serious?” She asked, almost afraid to get her hopes up.  
Trowa nodded.  
“I doubt it will be more dangerous that you being here. It’s not like a would be assassin or kidnapper is going to think to look for you in a diner.”  
Relena grinned.  
“Okay. Let’s do it.”  
“You’ll have to change though,” Trowa said.   
Relena glared at him.  
“Did you come up with this whole plan just so you could tell me what to wear?”  
He scoffed.  
“No. I mean it crossed it mind.”  
“Fine. I’ll change. But only if you stop calling me Queen of the world or princess.”  
He arched an eyebrow.  
“What am I supposed to call you instead?”  
“Just call me Relena. I - I’m just Relena.”  
“You’re not just anything,” Trowa scoffed. “But I’ll call you Relena. I like saying your name.”  
Relena looked at him and she could swear he was blushing.  
She grinned.  
“Trowa Barton. Are you in love with me?”  
He snorted.  
“No.” He said quickly but she could see one corner of his lips twitch.  
“Hm.”  
“Oh so you’re ‘hming’ me now?”  
She shrugged.  
“You’re the one who was busy planning out our wedding on the beach.”  
“That was for our cover. In case people were listening to us talk.”  
“Hm.”

 

-o-  
The End

SO I’d like to try something.  
While I WILL be working on updates for my WIPs, I’d also like to make March my 31 days of smut personal challenge. I want to try to post one fic a day, each day, that is nothing but pure smutty smut.  
I’d like to take submissions. If you’ve got some Gundam Wing smut you’ve wanted me to write or wanted to read, well, it’s your lucky month.  
I will tackle any pairing, any setting, any kind of theme with the sole exception of non-con.   
Send me an ask with what you want. It can be as vague as “2x3 angst-smut” or as detailed as “Cathy x Noin college roommate AU.”  
I’m up for the challenge (I hope).  
I’m going to go ahead and start taking requests now (if anyone is interested) and keep the requests open until I reach 31 or until March 1st.  
TL;DR: Help me. Tell me the smut you want.

 

(And I really am in the middle of updating Going the Distance and Unexpected Development. Sideshow is on the backburner atm but it WILL get an update soon).


End file.
